The above photo is from the Facebook page of Ian Driscoll, who thought it was funny that this Action Man (basically the UK’s version of G.I. Joe) looked like him. So he shot a photo and posted it. You might notice there’s a toy mortar in the background. Someone else, who lacks a sense of scale in many, many ways, did also.
As a result, Driscoll got a visit from five policemen, two packing submachine guns, assuming he was basically one bad day away from blowing something up:
After inspecting the model mortar, the rather embarrassed team of officers apologised and took their leave.
‘I couldn’t believe someone thought it was real,’ said Mr Driscoll, a model maker, at his home in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire. ‘It’s tiny and quite clearly a toy. I can’t stop laughing. I think it’s hilarious.’
The really sad part is that if you look at the scale of the image, the mortar is obviously tiny. If you look at the remote, the PS2 he’s rocking, or even the action figure itself, the central focus of the image, it’s pretty obvious the only thing that mortar might be throwing is a little shade.
As funny as this is, though, it does beg the question of what would have happened if the police had been a little more trigger-happy. They were prepared to bash Driscoll’s door in before he opened it up and asked what was going on. Boy, it’s really a good thing the EU wants to prevent these kinds of things from happening by installing a “flag this as terrorism” button in every browser. We’re sure that will help immensely.