The spilling of 280 litres of irradiated reactor coolant into the river Tamar is completely harmless, said a gigantic winged lobster today as it plucked unconcerned Plymothians from the streets and crushed them in its fearsome mandibles.
The lobster-creature, which emerged from the murky waters of Plymouth Sound late this afternoon, is thought to have mutated over a period of many years, thanks to a catalogue of radioactive leaks from Devonport Dockyard’s nuclear submarine complex since it was privatised.
The latest hazard was caused by a hose bursting as irradiated cooling water - likely to be contaminated with tritium - was being pumped from HMS Trafalgar. The accident occurred in spite of improved safety measures supposedly put in place after previous incidents.
A spokesman for the Royal Navy, Lt. Cmdr. Strangelove, speaking from a lead-lined concrete bunker half a mile beneath the city, was quick to reassure concerned citizens, if there were any.
“Initial sampling has not detected any radioactive contamination in the local environment,” he smiled through his NBC suit’s thick visor. “Of course, tritium - which enters the food chain in contaminated water, is carcinogenic and mutagenic, and is especially hazardous to growing cells - is difficult to detect without sophisticated equipment, so our Cold War-era radiation badges may not really be up to the job. Fortunately, though, tritium is odourless and tasteless, and it’s well known that what you can’t see can’t hurt you.”
The 250,000 easily-reassured inhabitants of Plymouth immediately relaxed, and returned to their normal occupations of unprotected sex, vandalism, abusing strangers, racing uninsured old Astras and chanting ‘Arguy-oe’.
The gigantic flying lobster paused from its rampage to say: “I’m not too worried about ingesting contaminated Janners. I’ve been eating their sewage for years, and it’s done me no harm whatsoever. In fact, I’ve positively thrived on it.”
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