Spot the odd one out
CHCB's story about bombs reminds me.

I remember having to do something similar when I worked in a shoe shop in Oxford, in 1991 I think it was.

Apparently someone had planted a firebomb hidden in a shoe box in another shoe shop in Oxford. People were being evacuated from said shop. This was some Major Shit. It was certainly the most interesting thing that had happened to me in a shoe shop, in a very short list of uninteresting things.

Leaving aside the question of why anyone would actually hide a bomb in a shoe box (Oxford, always a big target for the IRA), my thoughtful boss sent me into the fucking store room to go and 'check for bombs'.

Right, so that's look for an incendiary device that's supposed to be hidden in a shoe box, in a room full of shoe boxes that all look identical. As a 17 year old at the time, my bomb disposal skills were minimal, to say the least. Fuck knows what I would have done had there actually been anything to find (rather than it being a lame hoax); scattered myself around the store room and caught fire, I imagine.

I think I poked my head around the door for about 10 seconds, told everyone it looked fine and then went back upstairs and carried on standing around like everybody else.

That memory had escaped me for 20 years.

It was Barratt's on Queen Street, if anyone remembers (or cares).
(rockdoctor, Thu 7 Jul 2011, 15:11, 1 reply)

By exploding a bomb in a shoe-shop
You stand a good chance of destroying lots of Oxfords instead of just one.
(richardm, Thu 7 Jul 2011, 16:32, closed)