London, GB | Formerly of New York, Buenos Aires, Fife, and the Western Cape. | Saoránach d’Éirinn.

Country Life (Blowing Up Microwaves)

Some have said that the students of the University of St Andrews are pampered layabouts with nothing much to do. Today, we proved them wrong. We packed a microwave with butane-filled baloons and metallic materials and blew it up in a potato patch. And had a barbecue.

In reality, Nilene Hennessy realised she would be down south for the St. Valentine’s Day and decided it would be nice if she arranged a lovely Sunday afternoon for her boyfriend, Chris C., involving his best friends/foes and a dash of destruction thrown in for good measure.

Above, the conspirators are seen leaving town. The destination: Strathtyrum. (Not the big house but the farmhouse inhabited by Ed Harden nearby).

Upon arriving at the scene, the assembled looked lost and confused.

But lo! A farmhouse appeared! And inside lay fellow conspirators.

The site (codenamed ‘Trinity II’) was then inspected by the assembled.

Ed Harden’s fowl chamber of death. Abandon all hope, ye pheasants who are about to enter.

The barbecue then commenced…

… and Oscar fancied a sausage.

But with our early afternoon chow finished, it was time to get down to business.

C. displays the microwave to be sacrificed.

Preparations were made.

Meanwhile, Ed had a beer in the window.

And Chris and Callum made more preparations.

Let nothing come between a man and his improvised explosive devices.

Ed was still hanging out in the window.

Callum, unused to the terrors of potato patch destruction, began to look uneasy…

… while Chris and Dave prepared some more, for good measure.

Then, it was time.

Chris plugged the microwave into the extension cord…

…and then made like a banshee.

The first bit of flame after microwave went live.

Thar she blows!

The explosion didn’t happen precisely as planned. First, we used butane instead of the recommended hydrogen. Second, we didn’t use enough butane. But we got a good explosion out of it, and we’ve got it all on video to boot.

We then left Strathtyrum never to return again. Until we get hydrogen.

Published at 7:11 pm on Sunday 13 February 2005. Categories: Journal St Andrews.
Comments

Please buy hydrogen! Please!

— Jacob 9 May 2006 3:15 pm

If you’re going to blitz microwaves and don’t care what happens to them, try frigging the door interlock so it will run with the door open and set it up near a military airfield. I’m told that the dirty 2.5GHz signal is detected as a lock-on by the missile defence system. Of course, they might attack your microwave so run it off a 12V battery and inverter set! Might be fun.

— Michael Ney 18 Oct 2006 1:53 pm

Yeah – the Serbs used that trick in 1999 in Kosovo. NATO wound up shooting off all their anti-radar missilesat these radar sites…which were just microwaves with smashed in doors.

Don’t bother too much with the military airbase though…when I went to one they never bothered loading up the detection gear as it meant they could get more economy with the fuel by saving on weight

— CF 2 Jan 2007 12:01 pm

Hilarious!! Good show folks!!

— Caroline 7 Jan 2007 12:18 pm
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