(Images: Paul McDevitt)
Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more
The new cold war
THIS year marks the centenary of the lethal chlorine gas attacks at Ypres in Belgium, a spectre whose long shadow refuses to abate. Witness a barrage of stories that exploded across the UK daily newspapers recently, warning that the country faced chemical attack by home-grown jihadists.
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These terrorists, we are told, have worked out how to fashion crude chemical weapons by lacing conventional bombs with chlorine gas. 鈥淭he chlorine that is often used in bombs,鈥� rumbled the front page of The Times, 鈥渃omes from the cylinder on the back of household fridges.鈥�
Are fridges really a WMD lurking in our homes? Feedback isn鈥檛 convinced, though a colleague notes that some early cool boxes used methylene chloride, a potent solvent that can strip paint, weld plastic and decaffeinate coffee beans.
When burned, methylene chloride produces another first world war poison gas, phosgene, which might be one reason why it was eclipsed by less alarming coolants such as CFCs, which proved safer for us, if not for the ozone layer.
Feedback notes that one place you can still find methylene chloride in the home is in those delightful bobbing 鈥渄rinking birds鈥� beloved of children, a toy that we will now view with a more wary eye.
Janet Mackenzie writes 鈥淵our item on mis-parsed words reminds me of vainly searching for the word 鈥渕isle鈥� in my dictionary as a child, to work out the meaning of 鈥淚 have been misled鈥�.
Big bomb balls-up
ON THE subject of WMDs, Feedback previously discussed Blue Danube, the UK鈥檚 terrifyingly unstable nuclear fission bomb, which relied on a bag of ball bearings in the core to guard against premature detonation (21 June, 2014).
Chris Gibson writes to say that we are chromatically confused: Blue Danube was the weapon casing, the warhead was codenamed Violet Club. And it was the casing that was filled with ball bearings, says Nigel Rose: 鈥淭he bomb was triggered by a radio signal, sent to an aerial in the hollow nose cone. To prevent stray interference from the aircraft鈥檚 starter motors triggering the bomb, the nose cone was filled with steel balls to shield the aerial.鈥� Chris notes that, if nothing else, the maligned weapon did have 鈥渢remendous comedy potential鈥�, as the rubber safety bag could split, sending thousands of balls cascading across the runway and dozens of airmen head over heels as they frantically tried to gather them up.
Chemistry kit Krakatoa
STAYING on the topic of happenstance explosives, Niall Litchfield calls our attention to another item that the security services may wish to flag. He reports that as well as a 鈥渞ock salt depth charge鈥�, the wonderfully named Booms Bangs Fizzes chemistry set lists 鈥淰olcano鈥� among its contents. 鈥淚 consider the 拢4.95 delivery charge excellent value for money,鈥� says Niall. Feedback notes that for this set, a 鈥渘ose cone鈥� is also included, although there is no mention of ball bearings. We鈥檙e unsure whether to feel relieved or not.
Apple of discord
OLD-TIME Apple Macintosh users have been complaining of changes in their favourite computer鈥檚 user interface, and one Michael J. recalled on the -crashed message on the earliest Macs was a graphic of a round bomb with a sputtering fuse. Soon, 鈥淚 got a bomb鈥� became the Mac user鈥檚 standard description of a crash.
But context is everything, especially at airports. When passengers started taking early laptops on their travels, security inspectors insisted they start up the computers to prove they were nothing dangerous. Inevitably, things would go wrong, and when they did for one passenger, he said the first thing that came to mind. As Michael J. wrote, 鈥渢hat resulted in chaos鈥�.
Washed clean
ELSEWHERE, responsible parties are racing to mitigate the weaponisation potential of household goods. Antony Clarke reports from Australia that Finish dishwasher machine detergent tablets are now being advertised as containing 鈥渓ess chemicals鈥�. He notes: 鈥淭here is no mention of a weight reduction in the tablets, so I wonder what there is to replace the chemicals?鈥�
Dry Martini?
LAWMAKERS in the state of Ohio are also keen to have less chemicals, specifically powdered alcohol, which they . Feedback is not sure why the bill鈥檚 sponsors believe it has 鈥渁 higher potential for abuse鈥� than the liquid variety. Is it that the sachets are easier to smuggle in to school dances, or is this another novel bomb component to worry about?
Chloric climate
FINALLY, the fog of war lifted long enough for Feedback to discover that the fridges to be afraid of are those with canisters containing chlorodifluoromethane, otherwise known as R-22. At high temperatures, . The ozone-depleting coolant is in the process of being phased out, and since 1 January has been banned in the UK under the . Enterprising British terrorists, however, may still buy cylinders of pure chlorine gas by the tonne from chemical wholesalers.
So there is that to worry about.