Friday, July 06, 2007

"You're not hitting the polis mate, no chance"

I got sent an email from a Weegie mate early on monday morning directing to me to the wonderful JohnSmeaton.com. At the time the buy-John-a-pint pledge-a-metre stood at about five and it looked like Glasgow airport's top luggage handler and one-man-counter-terrorism-strike-force was going to have a quick night out to celebrate his new found fame. But it's been great fun watching word spread over the last four days, Smeato-mania truely kicking in (kung-fu stylee of course) and now the big man has well over a thousand pints lined up for him by fans.

Smeato-mania has gone mainstream with the the Smeatonator gracing the pages of the Guardian, the Times, the Telegraph and turning up on news websites all around the world. Now, in the best traditions of have-a-go-heros, ours has gone shy, said not much beyond "I just did what anyone would have done" and gone to hide at his mum's house. Ahhhh... bless.

John and all the others who bravely stepped up on saturday are a credit to themselves, Glasgow, Scotland and the UK. I did a phone interview for the Finnish TV news yesterday about the terrorist attacks, and they called whilst I happened to be visiting the RAF musuem at Cosford. Talking about terrorism with Spitfires and Hurricanes in the background reminded me that London and Glasgow (and most other UK cities) have been through a lot worse and this. Smeato and the great public response to his actions shows that spirit hasn't totally vanished in modern Britain.

Glasgow: taking the "terror" out of Terrorism since 2007!

No comments: