Braun HF 1 television; Germany, 1959

I have such a huge love of post-war German utilitarian design, particularly the mid-to-late fifties.

Whoa...

Part 1 of 9 available on YouTube...

Who's watching you watching the watchmen watching the detectives?

From Filthy England come the words of evil_egg , an utterly wonderfully crazy teenager.

I'd always heard second-hand stories about stuff like this but I'd never heard it straight from the source.

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"If I recall correctly, this was around 9/11, when the western world was shitting itself over terrorism, and Dubya kept his subjects too terrified to complain about his reign...

Anyhoo, me and aforementioned mate Bruce had recently seen on TV a prank involving a certain chemical compound that, when wet, is perfectly stable but when dry can be set off by the movement of a small insect. Now, the pranks this program perpetrated (Brainiac: Science Abuse, if you're interested) pretty much amounted to spreading this compound on a magazine cover, carefully placing another magazine on top, and waiting for some unsuspecting sap to move the upper rag... whereupon they would be startled by a loud snap as the chemical detonates. Clearly not a terribly harmful substance, I'm sure you'll agree.

Anyway, boys will be boys, and boys will be unhealthily interested in any rapid chemical reaction, preferably with collateral damage or prankster potential. So Bruce and I asked our chemistry teacher about this compound. I didn't think we seemed terribly shifty or suspicious in asking, and the chemistry teacher herself didn't seem too unsettled by our asking. Purely innocent fun. So, a lesson or two later, I'm pulled out of class by (I think it was) the deputy head, who wanted a quiet word with me about my asking about the compound. He also remarked that I did draw rather violent comics, and the implication was that these two phenomena were connected...

At the time, I just shrugged it off, but looking back on it, I can't help but feel slightly insulted. Do I really come across as that deranged?!

Actually, don't answer that."

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Anybody else got a good story about Homeland Terror, as instigated against you by The Homeland?

b