It’s really annoying me at the moment – I might want to fly somewhere, but I won’t be able to take a drink on the plane – why? Because the media have somehow convinced the “authorities” that I could take a bottle of something from my bathroom, and one of my fellow passengers could take on another, and if I retired to the bathroom for 5 minutes could mix them together and blow up the whole aeroplane!
Now this is sensationalist nonsense, but it appears that somewhere along the line the police, secutriy services or whatever have forgotten that (excuse my shouting) MOVIES ARE NOT REAL LIFE!
I’m not a chemist – the last real chemistry I did was in school when making sulphuric acid in my parents garage by electrolysis of copper sulphate solution, but I do think that maybe umm the Journal of the American Chemical Society might have something to say on the matter.
TATP is the most widely quoted binary liquid explosive, and in the 4th February 2005 issue published a piece Decomposition of Triacetone Triperoxide Is an Entropic Explosion on the synthesis of TATP. Dick Destiny has an article on the journal piece, and I’m not going to repeat what he said so go read it here.
Look, my favourite news source, The Register has also done a piece illustrating how difficult it would be.
And Dick Destiny has been busy on since then with more and more on the subject.
I’m glad I’m not the only one that it’s annoying – Ryan Air have something to say on the matter about the new secutiry measures, but if you’re at work you might not want to click here (NSFW).
Even if you’re not blowing up aeroplanes, you will get into trouble if you’re plaing with chemicals – the 20 year old in Manchester has shown that – but again, the media appears to have blown it all out of proportion, and completely lost any sense of reality.
Is it just me or are the power that be getting better at controlling us through fear – or are they getting more desperate and more obvious?
I’m guessing that this blog is now going to be watched on some list by the number of references to explosives and bombs and aeroplanes and aircraft and security services… maybe they’ll conclude that the welly wanger is the new Welsh weapon of mass destruction and confiscate it before Wednesday. 😉