Some unusual jobs today, the first call was to a concrete company (which will remain nameless - no doubt they have better lawyers than I). We were told to meet with the Police and Fire Service at a RVP (meeting point). It turns out that some animal liberation types have taken offence to this company (rumour being they are supplying to concrete to a new animal testing lab), and have sent some deactivated incendiary devices to various branches in order to scare them. Today in three of the offices across London some 'suspicious packages' had turned up, and we were being sent to cover the defusing of these devices. Two ambulances, one Duty Officer, three fire engines and countless police were there, standing around the, now evacuated, offices. Our Duty officer started allocating 'Major incident' roles to everyone. I don't think he wasn't best pleased when I asked him why, when major incidents are designed to deal with multiple casualties, we needed to play that game when the only person in any danger in the now deserted office was the bomb disposal officer.

He sent me to arrange the parking of the emergency vehicles.

We were soon stood down however, when it was discovered that the 'device' was actually a packet of envelopes.

The next call was to two brothers who had fought over possession of a bong, with one brother trying to sell it to a third brother. Both we and the police were sent, when we got there both brothers had calmed down and there were no serious injuries. One policeman was confused about what a bong was used for, until I explained that it was 'drug paraphernalia'. One of the brothers told the policeman that he was selling it because he didn't use it - he much preferred smoking his cannabis in a spliff.

Luckily for him the policeman ignored this massive blunder (and me collapsing in tears of laughter at this idiot essentially confessing his drug habits).

Our next interesting job was to a man in Docklands who had a head injury caused by trying to avoid an attacking seagull. It turns out that there is a seagull living there who dive-bombs people passing by. This man had ducked the avian attack, then tripped and fell flat on his face, knocking himself out. He had only minor facial injuries, but the loss of conciousness will mean a short stay in hospital being watched. My old crewmate suggested that he sell his story to the newspapers.

The rest of our jobs were rather boring after this early excitement.