Scale model hydraulic hammer causes concern and consternation at airport.
As evidenced by yesterday’s video highlights, Demolition News spent a few days in the company of the great and the good of the UK’s National Federation of Demolition Contractors at its fourth Demolition Day seminar/exhibition in Newcastle.
During the exhibition, the guys at Atlas Copco very generously handed me a 1:50 scale model of an HB 10000 hydraulic breaker, currently the largest attachment of its kind in the UK. Now I don’t have a vast equipment model collection – I have a nasty habit of giving away those that I am given in a vain attempt to increase readership and circulation numbers and win friends – but this is not a particularly common model so I was delighted to receive it.
At least I was, right up until the point that I arrived at the security check at Newcastle Airport. Like a good, law-abiding, well-travelled, post 911 passenger, I had separated by liquids into a small plastic bag, removed my belt, and kicked off my shoes with gay abandon. And there I stood, for some considerable time, while a growing crowd of security people gathered around the X-Ray machine monitor, pointing.
Eventually, one of them decided to confess that they didn’t know what they were looking at and took me through the whole “is this your bag, Sir” routine before asking what the big, metal pointy object actually was. Forgetting that I live and work in a bubble in which everyone speaks “demolition”, I said: “It’s a hydraulic breaker. You put it on an excavator and it knocks down buildings.”
Hearing it out loud in my head, I immediately knew this was a mistake. The security man certainly agreed as he took a swift step back from the bag, clearly fearing for his own safety and for that of the nation. “This can knock down buildings,” he asked, nervously. “Well no, that one can’t. That’s just a model. And besides, it’s not on an excavator, as you can plainly see,” I replied. “Do you have an excavator, Sir,” the security man now asked, clearly labelling me as a security risk.
Thankfully, after several minutes of worried questions, increasingly frustrated answers and my growing concern that the man with the rubber gloves was just one wrong answer away, common sense finally prevailed when a senior security guard entered the fray asking, simply: “Just how pointy is it?” “Not particularly,” replied his colleague, and I was waved on my merry way.
The model now takes pride of place on my bookshelf, alongside my “Bobby Moore – Tribute to a Legend” video, below my collection of Stephen King novels, and just above the 1950s era typewriter that I shall use to produce DemolitionNews in the event of a zombie apocalypse.
