Red wire or blue wire...

... which one do I cut? This bomb is going to explode if you don't tell me quick... RED OR BLUE?*

Now us scouters know the answer to that straight off. Just remove the ball from the tube!

D'uh

Or depending on the activity; the scissors from the ball of string, the peg from the pot or even the glow sticks from the other team... simple really!

But for todays proposes it's the ball out of the tube model. And of course, with all these risk assessments and health & saftey etc etc... I couldn't let my poor defenceless sprogs anywhere near the actual bombs now could I? (can you imagine the paperwork?!)

So my bomb disposal sprogs had to contruct something to get the tennis ball out of the tube and back to them without moving the rest of the of the bomb. All they had to do it was:

Broom handles (cause we can't find traditional scout staves), rope and a cup of water

In reality, this was my ploy to get them to practice the sheer lashing.

Not quite tight enough, but a decent attempt

So close!

Where as this was one of the other teams...

It didn't really get anywhere near

There was a third team, and if I am honest (and you know I do try to be honest to you all) they did get closer than the second team. But their contrapion was so flimsy it actually made an arch to get to the bomb.

There isn't a photo as I was too busy... laughing... I then of course pointed them in the right direction. They took it apart to try and fix it, but we ran out of time.

Surprisingly, what with all the water being held at a distance, the floor didn't actually get too wet!

*I never understood this; why handily colour code the wires so that it can be disarmed? Surely they would use all black wires... cause you know, black goes with anything. Why hasn't Hollywood thought of this? Or am I just being a tad too scarey just now. Ok, I'll shut up.