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virgil scott pt.2 The crabs attached to the slings that we'd threaded though the girders started banging against the surface of the building. Several people poked their heads out from their windows. First, a middle-aged lady yelled at us; we reassured her that we didn't intend to burgle anyone, but she didn't seem convinced.
Soon later a couple more heads came out from a window above us, they offered us a cup of tea, but we declined, hoping to top out as quickly as possible. Finally, at about three quarters of the way up, we heard some shouting from below. We looked down in horror to see a couple police officers, insisting that we come down immediately. Even after we told them it would be faster and safer to climb to the top, they still insisted that we start coming down immediately. So we set up an anchor and abseiled. What did the cops have to say? Initially they wanted to know our political motivations. I told them we simply did it for fun. I think they were a little disappointed that we weren't political activists, about to BASE jump with parachutes that say 'Vote Labour' on them. |
Were you arrested? They didn't place us under arrest, but one guy, who appeared to be the head honcho, decided that we needed to have a 'talk' in the back of their van. As we spoke, he decided that we must be high, claiming that our pupils were unusually dilated. We replied that we'd never do any serious climbing under the influence, as it affects your judgment and would be very risky. He accepted that this might be the case but still wanted to search us for drugs. So back to the station we drove. As we entered the station one of the young policewomen offered a full strip-search, unfortunately Mr. Head honcho deemed this unnecessary. She was curious as to why we were climbing a block of flats and suggested that we should climb the white cliffs of Dover instead. Once they had finished searching and found nothing, they seemed to be satisfied that we were genuinely not drug addicts, and after a few final words of caution, let us go without any trouble. You climbed Parson’s House right before the London bombings, so things have probably changed somewhat since then. I certainly won't be doing any high profile buildering in London anytime soon. I think if we hear about any attempts at climbing London buildings in the news they will be coupled with obituaries and apologies from Tony Blair. I think I'll stick to more low profile stuff. Who would win in a game of “shoot the mistaken terrorist in the back of the head”, Bert or Ernie? Well since Bert is evil, he would surely be more willing to execute innocent civilians. #
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