Boom Bang-A-Bang

At last. Sky News reports on the "largest haul (of explosive chemical precursors) ever found at a house in this country".

Four containers of sulphur - gunpowder
A packet of magnesium ribbon - flares, incendiaries
A container of aluminium powder - improves the bang of most explosives. Churchill was very cross when in WW2 he discovered we weren't putting it in our bombs. Used by PIRA.
A container of magnesium powder - flares, incendiaries
Three containers of magnesium shreds - ditto
A bottle of nitric acid - can be used with toluene and sulphuric acid to make TNT. Generally useful if you want to make things go bang.
A bottle of hydrochloric acid - pass.
A bottle of phosphoric acid - pass
A bottle of acetic acid - eh ? Maybe he knows more about bangs than I do. Diluted and coloured with caramel, it is sometimes sold in chippies as a disgusting vinegar-substitute called euphemistically 'Non-Brewed Condiment'
Four containers of potassium nitrate - aka saltpetre. Gunpowder
A container of potassium perchlorate - useful oxidiser
A bottle of dimethyl sulfoxide - pass. Good solvent.
A bottle of chloroform - for the lovely Kerena ? Deadly if overdone, of course. Not heard of it going bang.
A container of sodium hydroxide - cleaning the drains.
A bottle of acetone - TATP ? Or Kerena's nail varnish ?
A bottle of toluene - see above
A bottle of methanol - not to be confused with big sister ethanol.
A bottle of ethanol - mix with water and lime juice. Very little hangover.
Two bottles of hydrogen peroxide - useful oxidiser, once used in rockets
Five bottles of hydrogen peroxide - ditto
Two bottles of potassium Iodide supplements - in case of nuclear strikes ?
A bottle of potassium permanganate - peroxide dissociates violently in the presence of pot permang, liberating lots of heat and oxygen, also steam which is not so useful.
A bottle of ammonia - for cleaning the windows
An ampoule of methadone chloride - no comment
Three containers of iodine crystals - surely he wouldn't try nitrogen tri-iodide ?
A bottle of hydrogen peroxide hair product - see above

As far as I know it's not illegal to possess any of the above.

The alleged rocket launchers vanished from press reports quite a while ago, seemingly now followed by the nuclear protection suits.

Robert Cottage got two and a half years after admitting possessing explosives. I find that slightly odd as he didn't actually possess any. But his sentence certainly bears out my observation that "a desire to make improvised explosive devices, when mixed with right-wing politics, can be extremely hazardous to your liberty." Compare his sentence with that of Edward Mattison, who not only made but detonated some quite large devices. He got less than half Cottage's sentence.

Mr Cottage at first glance wouldn't appear to have a great deal in common with Irfan Raja and his co-defendants, jailed for "possessing material for terrorist purposes" or "having articles for terrorism" - the BBC reporter can't make up his mind. But like Mr Cottage (and unlike Mr Mattison), they hadn't actually done anything.

Among the items found was a film showing atrocities against Muslims around the world, aimed at encouraging martyrdom, the Old Bailey was told.

We seem to be in the same territory where people who report on (true) crimes committed by one or other ethnic group are accused of 'stirring up racial hatred' - the truth or otherwise of their claims being apparently immaterial. Whether a film of atrocities is 'encouraging martyrdom' is surely a subjective judgement - and in any event, English culture and the Christian faith have venerated martyrs from Samson, whose pulling down of the Temple of Dagon would surely qualify as an act of terrorism, through John Wall and the Catholic Martyrs to the names once known to every English child through Foxe's Book of Martyrs.

These prosecutions seem to lie in a strange half-world - but closer to the political offence than the criminal act.


The defendants denied having extremist views and some said they were researching ideology and other matters.

Hang on. In a matter of criminal law why should their views count one way or the other ? Why's it so important for them not to be 'extremists' ?

Because motivation is all. Possessing items "likely to be of use for terrorism" is such a broad concept that in practice the 'likeliness' is decided not by what the items are, but what the accused may have wanted to do with them. The 9/11 murderers used Stanley knives and Microsoft Flight Simulator, but those of us who possess both are unlikely to get arrested at 5 am unless we start posting on jihadi websites while simultaneously researching flight deck door locking mechanisms and when the stewards bring the pilots coffee.

Similarly Omar Altimimi got nine years despite the police admitting that "we will never know exactly what Altimimi was preparing to do". He had built up a library of terror-related literature - but on those grounds Professor Paul Wilkinson should be inside.

The sad thing for Mr Cottage is that if gunpowder was all he wanted, why not just buy some fireworks and dismantle them ? Although the banger and the fearsome mortar are now banned, you can buy multi-shot cakes at very reasonable prices these days - enough I would have thought to construct the mother of all thunderflashes. (Not that I would encourage such things, as it's almost certainly illegal under some law or other). I guess Mr C just wanted to do it himself - to be self-sufficient. Just goes to show how British initiative is being stifled ... in the Land of the Free people still play here.

Other posts on the Great BNP Bomb Horror :

Not With A Bang But A Whimper

Half A Ton Of BNP Rice

Huge BNP Bomb War Horror Shock Apocalypse

It's Tin-Foil Hat Time ...

Tsk Tsk