grumpyf1

My recent adventure of being awoken at 3.45 by two fire engines was well and truly trumped by Smethwick this week, which had 200 fire personnel tackling a blaze at a recycling centre. And what triggered the inferno, which saw 100,000 tonnes of plastics ablaze? A Chinese lantern. A little while earlier, someone had set it on it’s catastrophic journey, watched is gently float away, and probably thought “Ah. How beautiful.” Maybe they were mourning the passing of a loved one, or celebrating a wedding, or were at a party. After it had drifted out of sight, they probably thought no more of it. I sincerely hope they watched the news on Monday with a sense of horror and guilt that it might have been their little lantern that triggered this massive blaze. Ah well – it’s just some old plastic eh? No real harm done, right? No? On the very same day, 19 firefighters died in Arizona, doing their jobs. Any blaze puts a fire crew at risk, not to mention the lives of members of the public. Eve...