Bristol Museum, Fake Terrorist Attacks and JLS.

Bristol.

It was the first day of October, the hottest day of the year and my daughters birthday.

A visit to the Science Museum was top of her birthday wish list and hence the reason we were in a car on this stunning autumn morning and beginning to resemble pit bull terriers at car boot sale due to the 28 degree temperature inside the car.

After a recent school trip, it had been heralded as the
'Absolutely bestest place ever, ever, ever, Dad'

How could I refuse?

After doing three laps of the City centre due to a succession of diversion signs, blinded by sweat, ears bleeding from JLS's new shite-fest on repeat through the speakers and the constant images of ice cream eating locals swaning about in the sunshine, I was beginning to wish I had and settled for a happy meal at MacDonalds and a trip to the zoo.

Kids these days, pah..

Eventually pulling into Anchor Road, the Home of all things absolutely bestest, ever, ever, ever and sciencey, the reason for the diversion signs became worryingly apparent.

We were met by a lightshow of flashing sirens as a wall of emergency vehicle lined the streets.

Hundreds of policemen in armoured vests and rifles, milled around in the road.

Makeshift tents and canopies hung from ambulances as paramedics tended the injuries of just out of sight bodies, their feet poking out from under blankets.

Bomb squads weaved their way through puddles of blood now staining the streets.

A man with half his face hanging off stumbled around helplessly, another with a missing leg grasped a lampost, his tattered clothing burnt into his exposed flesh.

A woman with a football sized burgundy hole in her stomach, clutched at a piece of metal that had turned her into a human kebab.

'Oh,.... shit...' we mouthed silently, as our car idled in the middle of the road.

JLS sang in the background creating a surreal soundtrack to the unfolding events.

My instinct was to slam my foot to the pedal and reverse out of there as quick as possible, as my brain started to process the fact that today might now be remembered as Ten One Twelve, rather than the celebration of my daughters birth.

An armed policeman calmly walked over to our car.

'Where's that mans leg gone Dad?' enquired my Daughter as she briefly looked up from her Nintendo.

'Good Morning Sir', said the policeman. 'Sorry for the hold up, but were holding a training day'

Hanging off face man, now seemed to be chatting up kebab woman and were swapping phone numbers on their phones.
One leg man turned out to actually only have one leg, the burns seemed to be a mix of plasticine and ketchup and was now having a fag and talking to the ambulance drivers.

'Phew,' I replied, the relief obvious on my sweaty face,

' I don't reckon the Al Qaeda have ever heard of Bristol eh?, let alone fly something into it. Its taken me an hour to get round the bloody diversions, so even if they did try, I imagine they would've given up by know and blown up Taunton instead'

The policeman said nothing, but gave me the sort of look a horse would upon being given an IPAD.

'How do I get to the science museum then?' I offered, backtracking really fast.

'No Idea Sir, but you'd best move out of the road as a few of us are off home in a minute'

'Righty oh then, wouldn't want to get in the way of important business Officer'
and we drove through the fake carnage into an underground car park passing a giant sign reading BRISTOL SCIENCE MUSEUM right behind the copper.

The walk up to the Museum was a bizarre one.
Passing more bodies in varying displays of dismemberment as the emergency services pretended to dress the wounds and stretcher them away , armies of men in gas masks and metal detectors searched for imaginary bombs.

My daughter for some reason was totally unfazed, only stopping to point out rather loudly that the man having a fag was very good at standing on one leg, not realising that he was a true uni-leg or whatever one legged persons prefer to be called.

The Museum was 'absolutely bestest', but the lure of what was going on outside kept pulling us away from the exhibits.
At one point one of the volunteers lay down in the middle of the road with his head tucked under his shirt, pretending to be decapitated.

In an environment geared up for knowledge and fact we learnt a few things on that day.

1. Things arent always as they first seem.

2. If you find yourself in a blind panic, take a deep breath count to 10 and access the situation.

3. At no cost take it for granted that policemen know what they are talking about.

4. Bristol council must have complete lunatics working for them, to give the go ahead for such a horrific display on the much predicted hottest day since man first looked at the sun. Not for one second taking into consideration how it would look to innocent bystanders.

5. If you find yourself missing a limb, theres always great call for pretend terrorist attack victims.

6. If you are mentally unhinged and enjoy going to great lengths to dress yourself up as a dead body, there also seems to be a great call for your services. Im not sure if you get paid but it keeps you from torturing kittens.

7. JLS on repeat should be used by allied forces getting information out of insurgents as it must be more useful than waterboarding, and might relieve us of the need to perform such outrageous wastes of money and manpower.

8. The DNA double helix is a spiral polymer of nucleic acids.