Sunday, October 25, 2009

Ya, But Can A Billion Dollars and Helicopter Gunships Stop....

Ringed-InByTheCircus
AllFiveVille


......This?





And yes, that Olympic Torch hoax was the real deal:

(Barry) Larkin and eight other students at St John's College, University of Sydney, planned to protest against the Olympic Flame (in 1956).

One reason was that the torch relay was invented by the Nazis for the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany. The plan was to get one of the other students, dressed in white shorts and a white top, to carry a fake torch. The fake was made of a wooden chair leg painted silver, on top of which was a plum pudding can. A pair of underpants, worn by one of the students in National Service, was put inside the can, soaked in kerosene. The underpants were set on fire. Another student dressed as a motorcycle outrider by wearing a reserve airforce uniform.

The torch was scheduled to enter Sydney, carried by Harry Dillon. Dillon would present the Torch to the Mayor of Sydney, Pat Hills, at Sydney Town Hall. Hills would then make a speech and pass the torch to Bert Button.

Before Dillon arrived, the two students went out carrying the fake torch. At the beginning, people noticed they were joking and even the police laughing at them. Then the underpants fell out of the torch because the fake runner was swinging his arms too hard. The runner panicked and fled. Peter Gralton, one of the nine students, went to get the pants and told Larkin to pick up the torch. With Larkin holding the torch, Gralton kicked Larkin's backside and told him to run. Larkin did so, running the rest of the way to Sydney Town Hall. He ran the rest of the route, protected by police who thought that he was Dillon.



Oh, and that bit about the Nazis inventing the modern day five-ringed circus torch relay is for real too.

Interesting that, especially given what's goin' on around here right these days, don't you think?

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