A View Of London Calling Chicken Little

If you listen to this album, then the terrorists win.

It's a slow day here on the j-o-b, so I've been able to do a bit more clandestine web surfing. I wiped out, however, when I came across this story about a man in England who was detained as a possible terrorist because he sang the lyrics to "London Calling" in a cab on the way to catch a flight.

I am not making this up.

Here's the story, as found on the MSNBC website, in a nutshell:

Harraj Mann, a 24 year old, got into a cab in northern England. He was headed to Durham Tees Valley Airport to catch a flight to London. The cab was fitted with a music system which allowed him to plug in his MP3 player. He was listening to "London Calling," and began singing along. The cab driver, upon hearing lyrics like, "Now war is declared," and "meltdown expected," sized up Harraj, put two and two together, came up with five and alerted authorities. Harraj was detained by Durham police and later released, but he missed his flight. Harraj had a sense of humor about the situation, saying that while he can understand the driver not being a fan of the Clash, but he "didn't think there was any need to call the police." A spokeswoman for the Durham police was quoted as saying that the cab driver made the report "with the best intentions" and she hoped this incident wouldn't deter people from contacting the police with "genuine concerns."

Wonder what would've happened if Harraj had been singing this XTC song? Or happened to be listening to this classic Gil Scott-Heron piece?

While not effective, this war on terrorism has cornered the market on unintentional humor.

More to come later. If I'm not placed on a terrorist watch list, that is.