Talking of leaving vehicles in inadequate places, a cyclist had the wonderful idea of leaving his bike parked in front of the Guardia Civil post in Granada.

Now, the Guardia Civil are still a bit jumpy when it comes to vehicles being parked outside their gates owing to those ETA terrorism years, but normally a bicycle would not have them over duly worried. The problem was that its owner had made it into one with an electrical motor, so it had suspicious appendages to its form.

This was on a Sunday night, by the way. Anyway, a Guardia Civil foot patrol came across the bicycle leant up against the police-stations perimeter wall near the entrance. The owner had probably thought that it was the safest place to leave his bike out on the streets at night. But let us not forget that although ETA terrorism is a thing of the past, Islamic terrorism is not and Spain remains on an alert level.

After gingerly inspecting the bicycle with its homemade alterations; i.e., wires coming out of a box-like contrivance, they decided to get out a dog trained to detect explosives. The dog, probably understandably upset at be woken up in the middle of the night and dragged out onto the streets, gave indications that there could be dynamite or other explosive agents involved… and probably had a good chuckle on its way back to its kennel.

Well, things went up a gear or two at the police station and the Tedax (Bomb Disposal Unit) were called out and the Policía Local set up barriers to prevent traffic entering the area.

A Tedax officer, encased it his protective suit, approached the bike and examined it before attacking a detonating device which blew the bike apart. With a sigh of relief, it was announced that it was not a bicycle bomb.

Shortly afterwards the owner turned up once the barriers were removed. He asked where his bike was and was shown the remains after having been explained to him what a bloody fool he was to have left it there.

(News: City & Metropolitan Area, Granada, Andalucia)