BBC are reporting that a teenager has been held over 'bomb making', and that "four controlled explosions were carried out".
"Detectives stressed it was not a terrorist incident but believed it was an over-enthusiastic chemistry student."
Apparently we're not a nanny state [one, two, three], but if I recall correctly from my days of being a pupil, the biggest reason why people got into chemistry was to blow shit up, so it's interesting to see a "crackdown" on one of these potential chemists. Teenage boys will always, it seems, have an affiliation with the power to overcome nature and find new inventive ways to make things go bang. Cap guns and an inherent interest in the Anarchist's Cookbook are further evidence that there's something naturally alluring about the way stuff works.
Blair would love to see more scientists on the education enrolement list, but is arresting them (probably increasingly under anti-terrorism laws) the right way of doing it? How many 14-year-old potential chemists will need to be sacrificed (read "victimised" and "media-circused") before the link between perceived popularity of the subject and industrial prosperity is made?
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