Council boss trapped in Spinnaker

[emad]

A man was trapped in the lift of Portsmouth's Spinnaker Tower for more than an hour - on the day the troubled structure finally opened to the public.

The external glass lift jammed 33ft (10m) up trapping the city council's project manager, David Greenhalgh, who later apologised for the breakdown.

Abseiling engineers were called to fix the lift and release Mr Greenhalgh.

Problems with the lift earlier delayed the opening of the tower, which is five years late and £11.1m over budget.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/4351452.stm

[...of J.Temperance]

1. I think these idiot politicians do these things deliberately

Really I do.

[moggie]

2. Hurrah!

Doesn't this story make one's heart swell with patriotic pride? This is the kind of comprehensive cockup we do so well! In particular, don't forget that this was a millennium project! Remember the millennium? It was quite big a few years ago.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. It's a running joke down here

(the cockups, not the tower itself - distinctly non-running).

I blame the Y2K bug, myself - it was lying dormant in the lift system for 5 years. :-)

[Nihil]

5. I'm waiting for the first *big* storm :-)

I see the tower every now & then when we do a gig on the south coast
and each time I think "That'll be brilliant to watch in a thunderstorm."

One big lightning conductor!

[mr blur]

4. My wife said this morning,

"Shall we go and see the Spinnaker?" (We live about 10 miles away). I said, "Nah, let's not bother". So we didn't. Shame, it would have been cool to see an abseiling engineer.

[Briar]

6. He was luckier than Huskisson

as a victim of newly launched technology, at any rate.