Posted on 11/30/2008 5:06:23 PM PST by bruinbirdman
When a Santa hat was placed on a spire at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, the joke was lost on authorities who had it removed because it was a risk to health and safety.
A team of 10 firefighters using two fire engines and a support vehicle with a hydraulic platform spent an hour lowering the seasonal headgear, which had been fastened to a 60ft spire about the college entrance known for centuries as the Gate of Humility.
The culprit remains a mystery, but it is thought to be a student playing a practical joke following an end-of-term night out.
The college response was in stark contrast to a previous prank hailed as one of the greatest of all time. In 1958, students at Gonville and Caius winched an Austin Seven onto the roof of the nearby Senate House and residents of Cambridge awoke to see it perched at the apex of an inaccessible rooftop, looking as if it were driving across the skyline.
~snip~
It is not known how anyone managed to scale the spire in the latest incident, which is thought to be impossible to climb, to attach the hat. An identical hat was found stuck to the cupola roof of nearby Clare College.
"In my experience the spire of the Gate of Humility can not be climbed, although if there's a similar hat at Clare's it suggests someone has scaled the buildings," said one student.
"A possibility is that someone has accessed the spire from inside the college."
Witnesses said the operation to remove the hat involved closing part of the nearby road, leading to traffic tailbacks.
A spokesman for the University of Cambridge said it was aware that three fire brigade vehicles were involved in the operation to remove the hat but declined
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
It should have been removed by a private contractor on monday wtf is going on with this country
Pardon my stupidity, but why was a hat a safety hazard?
???
This is Cambridge. Intellectuals are not known for their wisdom.
Health and safety my A$$.
Bruised pride is more like it.
Risk of offending Islamic terrorists? ...
Hat wasn't going to hurt anyone and would eventually blow off.
College alpinists have been scaling "impossible" routes on buildings at Oxford and Cambridge since forever.
Wish they'd use a little bit of that concern and manpower on the jihadists in the mosques who are training to torture and murder Americans, Britons, Jews, and other westerners. But I guess that's too risky.
man my comprehension is bad today its across the pond not here but still
They is smart up there I tell ya.
There will always be an England.
One of my ex-girlfriends had a Gate of Humility, and no man could climb that spire either.
Baloon - three people and guide lines - some kind of release mech. - Done!
“Risk of offending Islamic terrorists?”
All the better, when they show their faces, ki em!
Keep in mind that this is the same city that shut itself down because someone left a couple of Lite-Brites featuring a crude gesture around town.
Is that a wire running to it?
OMG. Oxford/Cambridge professors live in a ‘microcosm’. I’m so glad ONE of them is ‘real’. Refreshing!
Probably a ground wire for a lightening rod.
The real joke is the response.
Truth be known, the real reason wasn't "health & safety"; nor even bruised administerial pride, but it was (GASP!) a public reminder, even if secular, of CHRISTMAS!
Come to think of it, rioting Muslims masses would be a threat to "health & safety".
Didn’t the blind sheik wear a santa cap?
*snort* Just whose health and safety was being threatened by it?
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