Readers will be doubtless pleased to know that they can sign up at the MI5 website for a chip to be implanted in their brain email updates when the UK terrorist threat level changes.
The current threat level is apparently SEVERE and has been so since the 14th August 2006. Ruthie wondered what could possibly be worse than SEVERE but it can go to CRITICAL.
So, Ruthie is sitting in her office in a provincial town somewhere in the East of England and the e mail comes in from MI5 “threat levels now critical”. (Lets home she’s not in the loo at the time.) She promptly places a paper bag over her head in the approved manner and crawls under her desk to await the blast possibly occurring 200 miles away, or indeed possibly not occurring at all.
Maybe Ruthie will just put a paper bag over her head anyway and perhaps when she takes it off, the world will be a little less insane.
(Actually the MI5 website is rather fun. Check out “myths and misunderstandings” and the history of the security service, clearly someone there has a sense of humour.) The site is also helpfully available in Arabic!
Yet another example of classist Britain, the posh ones with broadband get the full lowdown on how not to get blown up while the teletext-using common folk are supposed to leave their personal safety to chance.
And the anonymous bloggers will be fine since we all have paper bags on our heads all the time anyway.
But…they know where you live… just can’t get the postal service to deliver the bloody letters! But… that is why we are British. It was good to hear, today, that Dame Eliza, apparently, told a group of Labour MPs on the eve of the 11/7 bombing that no threat was imminent.
Dr. Gonzo: I’d love to think that my broadband connection is saving me from oblivion…
Anyway, think broadband is ubiquitous now.
Uh…why would anybody want to get onto MI5’s e-mail list?