Beware the European brick

Trevor @ Tuesday June 15th 2004 19:22

Mad Andy has a good old laugh at The Guardian for writing that

The home secretary, David Blunkett, warned today that police will come down ‘like a tonne of bricks’ on football fans who misbehave at home during the Euro 2004 tournament.

Sez Mr Lostinspacesky:

Given that they’re in Europe, it seems only fair to use metric weights on them, which means that they’ve gotten off lightly. 16.047 kg lightly, in fact.

What he is forgetting is the special nature of the great British brick, and in particular of the Flettons which made the London Brick Company famous and which you find all over the country. Unlike the clay used to make most European bricks, lower Oxford clay contains some 10% carbon, which makes it virtually self-firing, which enabled good solid bricks to be produced at a relatively low cost; European bricks, on the other hand, have traditionally been hollow affairs.

The bad news in this for England fans is that although the total weight of masonry units being dropped on them may be lower than during a typical British police action, the number of bricks (and, I believe, of injuries) will be higher. This may be ironed out during European brick harmonisation, but for now, as the UK Independence Party will no doubt continue to remind you, Europeans may seem lightweight but there’s a hell of a lot of them out there.

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  1. Mad Andy
    June 16th 2004 12:47

    I consider myself corrected.

  2. The Prandial Post
    June 16th 2004 12:49 Brickolage
    According to The Guardian, “The home secretary, David Blunkett, warned today that police will come down ‘like a tonne of bricks’ on football fans who misbehave at home during the Euro 2004 tournament.” Given that they’re in Europe, it seems only fair t…

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