 // Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch Bomb Scare You just can't make this stuff up: Buildings were evacuated, a street was cordoned off and a bomb disposal team called in after workmen spotted a suspicious object. But the dangerous-looking weapon turned out to be the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, made famous in the 1975 film Monty Python And The Holy Grail. [...] They evacuated a pub and another building in Tabernacle Street, while office staff in another building were stopped from leaving. But when the bomb squad arrived, they quickly established there was no danger and the street was declared safe. In the film, the grenade was used to slaughter a killer rabbit. ... Alberto Romanelli, who owns the Windmill pub nearby, said the police action in ordering his pub to be evacuated had been as ridiculous as the film scene. "They evacuated the pub while they were doing X-rays and stuff," he said. "It all lasted about 45 minutes before they decided it was nothing -- which I thought was pretty obvious from the start. I lost a good hour's worth of business." I used to catalog examples of the war on the unexpected, but stopped because they were just too many of them (see also here and here), but this one is just too funny to ignore. EDITED TO ADD (3/20): Lest you think this is tabloid hyperbole, here's the story in a more respectable newspaper. Tags: bombs, overreactions, terrorism, war on the unexpected