"Would we, perhaps, sooner have ordinary bins back, and chance it that the odd one might explode?"

No, because then the terrorists would have won.

Oh!

About 10 years ago, I remeber a guy from Kidderminster invented such a bin. It basically has some sort of water surround in a special jacket. the idea most of the blast would be directed upwards with any thing else being absorbed by the jacket....but then those amateur IRA blokes got forgotten about and got replaced by the much deadlier Al-Bongos...

I might have to make a trip to Londinium and pick one of these up... literally. Crowbar + van = new, huge, monitor! Woo!

"The City."

Did I miss something? Is there only one city in the UK now? London's a shithole anyway.

I'd be more inclined to laugh if this didn't smell like it was inspired by a couple of features from The Day Today.

Does this mean Chris Morris is on your payroll? Hope so...

A telescreen on every corner. DoublePlusGood.

But seriously, I hope these screens aren't bombproof too. Fingers crossed a sharp whack with a hammer and chisel will render them useless.

I welcome our new BlastGard overlords

These guys have managed to cloak putting their own TV advertising platform across the most heavily populated (during the day) part of the UK and cloaked it in a green/anti-terrorism-wash BS.

I wish I'd thought of that.

Pardon my French, but this sounds like pr0n for the nu Puritans - watch yourself on a big screen as you put it away. Sad does as sad is.

...rubbish on the outside.

, it might've read:

Bin Bomb Bang Bingo for BlastGard-based Boffins.

...then again, it might not have.

It's all a bit silly really because seeing as any publicly accessible place where people congregate is a target, i.e. most everywhere - and seeing as you could stuff a large rucksack or suitcase with way more explosive and get around any bomb-proof container anyway, what's the point?

There's nothing stopping any terrorist from simply walking down any high street on a Saturday. Putting their rucksack on the floor and walking 'round the nearest corner. Why bother sticking it in a bin? For all the security at airports, what about the check-in queues? They're way before you get to any scanners or security; simply walk in off the street, drop your rucksack outside the loos, walk-in, ten second fuse, bang. Why would you restrict your bomb by putting in a bin? There's often a few thousand people at the check-in queues as opposed to only a few hundred on a plane. If I've thought of this, then they've thought of this too, which means that they either can't make a bomb or the terrorists don't exist. See also, food shops like Tesco/Sainsburys on a Saturday afternoon, cinema queues, concert queues, school playgrounds that back onto a normal street, train platforms, etc. The list is endless.

To be honest the very fact that no-one has been blown up for quite some time is proof positive that the terrorist threat in this country has been massively exaggerated, if not completely fabricated, although now is probably truer than it was five years ago due to government tactics to divide and conquer and persecute pretty much everyone for everything. Along with the multiple media-grabbing arrests over the last five years, with the not-so-noticeable, quiet, out-the-back-door release of lots of "terrorists" with no charges being brought to bear, i.e. a media stunt to prop up the fear agenda.

Ah, the agenda of fear; my old, comfortable friend...

Worked so well for those contactless payment cards didn't it?

Talking heads spouting their rubbish direct into recycling bins and the bins providing the material back to the next talking head.

The irony is a bit overstated for me but the concept is good.

Now - lets get it hacked and run the 'eyes only' clips from Dark Angel and we have UK2012 in a nutshell.

Bombs-schmombs - the only reason the IRA used to put them into bins was cos the bins made good shrapnel. Rubber bins would have solved the problem overnight and caused much hilarity for late night revellers bouncing their way merrily homeward too.

@Thomas Baker: "To be honest the very fact that no-one has been blown up for quite some time is proof positive that the terrorist threat in this country has been massively exaggerated, if not completely fabricated, "

No, it's this rock I have on my desk. Ever since I put it on my desk there hasn't been a terrorist explosion in London, so it must be my rock. Would you like to buy it?

Or will the screens be around knee level, thereby making them essentially unviewable for anyone over 4 feet tall?

Wonderful. So normal material-based pollution will now be replaced by audio and visual pollution. Every queue in every building these days seems to have a TV pumping out adverts that annoy all those that have to listen to them.

This is simply a trojan horse on every corner as part of an overall expansion of surveillance.

Anybody want to bet these boxes will not contain face recognition cameras and directional microphones?

All linked to HQ via fibre optics no doubt.

they will both look and sound like Daleks.

Done now, getting coat.

That was my thought exactly and while I've never been to London I'm sure it's like any other major city and the noise at street level is enough that any spoken material coming from these will be drowned out. So I'm not quite sure how this is effective marketing for them or their "media partners".

Paris, cos she's confuzzled by it as well.

This is the initial stage of a phased rollout across the UK. The telescreens will inform of Oceania's military victories against Eastasia, and production increases of tractors and choco rations.

Later, once people have got used to the idea, the telescreens will extend to the whole of London, and afterwards, the whole UK / INGSOC.

You are being watched.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Brother_(Nineteen_Eighty-Four)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescreen

Telescreens rolled out across the whole country? Don't be silly, what sort of country would have something like that? ;-)

Oh, that would be us, right here, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/olympics/london_2012/article4393535.ece

Still, boot production is up, and I do have this nice mug of Victory Gin.

"is the brainchild of former LSE students Kaveh Memari and Brian James"

is LSE what they where taking when they came up with this idar?

LSD

Wow, it's time to head for me bunker ;-)

Temporary for the Olympics is just about acceptable, putting aside the noise/visual intrusion for those not interested in this shite as they make their way down the high street, but permanent? George Orwell was such a visionary.

BTW, looks like the photo of the Telescreen has a frikkin' camera on top of it, so it really is a Telescreen, and not a TV, if that is the case. Yes sir, that's just to protect it from vandals -- move along now, nothing to see here...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/olympics/london_2012/article4393535.ece

A plan is forming....

These bins with the telescreens pumping out London properganda are blast proof. So you could put a small bomb inside that will disable the telescreen without hurting pedestrians? Would a fire be a safer option?

How do we solve the camera problem and the congestion charge?

"To be honest the very fact that no-one has been blown up for quite some time is proof positive that the terrorist threat in this country has been massively exaggerated, if not completely fabricated..."

You sound like a conspiricy nut and as we know all conspiricy theorys are wrong because they are conspiricy theories put forward by people who believe in conspiricy theorys whach as we stated earlier are wrong because..... Surely a much more logical explaination is the The War On Terror (TWOT) is working and if it had been a fabricated event the BBC would have said so.... but that would be a conspiricy theory which as we know is wrong because the people who put forward conspiricy theorys must be wrong and the BBC could never say that because then they would be wrong and would be sacked like with all that David Kelly, 45 mins stuff.

I tell you what though. With all that armour and electronics, the bins would make a great place for the government to hide bombs. Bomb sniffing dogs would never be believed, their handlers would assume that dogs always snif bins.