Terrorettes

The trial of the terrorettes continues. The question is not “did they try to blow stuff up on the Tube?”, but “did they intend to kill lots of people when they did it?”. The presence of nails in, and the highly explosive nature of, the intended explosive suggests that they did, but you get points if in the next few weeks you spot any of the following conspiracy theories:

* They didn’t try to blow up anything and they have been fitted up by the police (2 points)

* They didn’t try to blow up anything and they have been fitted up by the Prime Minister to distract attention from Iraq (5 points)

* They didn’t try to blow up anything and they have been fitted up by Metronet to cover up their own shoddy maintenance work on the Underground(10 points)

* They didn’t try to blow up anything. Ramzi Mohammed was telling the truth when he claimed the explosive mixture that had tumbled out of his rucksack was “bread”. Bread is surprisingly volatile (15 points)

* They didn’t try to blow up anything. The particular Muslim tradition to which they belong claims that the Prophet Mohammed used to travel around dispensing chapati flour, hydrogen peroxide and nails to the faithful (20 points)

* Bonus geek points: This one chemist reckons that no way was there enough hydrogen peroxide to kill everyone in the carriage, and it would probably only have killed or maimed people within a reasonable radius, so the entire prosecution case is discredited, and could he maybe get a regular column in the Guardian out of this? (40 points)

* They did try and blow everything up, but were put up to it by MI5 for some reason (100 points) (high score because this is only likely to be spotted in Lobster Magazine)

* Whether or not they blew anything up, it’s all the fault of the Jews (0.1 points per mention, mainly Middle Eastern sources) (You will still beat all other spotters hands down)

Best detail to come out of this trial so far:

Specialist police officers who investigated the train following the incident [at Warren Street] found a gelatinous mass on the floor of the second carriage, the court heard. Next to it lay a rucksack containing two shirts, deodorant, aftershave and a DVD of the comedy film, Meet the Fockers. The jury heard Mr Omar's fingerprints were on all the items.

That's a harsh review by any standards. Still, no publicity is bad publicity, right?