Must ... Break ... Lock ... Somehow

I think there must be something about being in a mob that makes a person stupid, or stupider.

Take, for instance, those two Iranian students, or Basiji militiamen or whatever they are, who tried to force open the gate of the British Embassy in Tehran yesterday. The gate was being held shut by a length of chain wrapped around the two leafs of the gate and secured with an ordinary padlock. The two students - and I think they really are students, judging by their complete lack of mechanical aptitude - tried repeatedly to break the lock off using two little spindly sticks.

They could have popped the padlock in two seconds with bolt cutters, or cut the chain with a hacksaw, or shimmed the lock open. All quick and easy methods that require no more sophistication than a junkie burglar would possess. But, no. Instead, these regime supporters decided to poke at the brass lock with sticks. Good luck with that.

Honestly, it looked like the Dawn of Man scene in 2001 - A Space Odyssey, where the apes are trying to learn the use of tools. The biggest difference was the lack of that great Also Sprach Zarathustra sound track. That, and the fact that the apes figured it out in only two minutes and 17 seconds, whereas the Iranians had made no progress at all by the end of this three-minute video clip.



Somebody got the gate open eventually, but I doubt it was those two. I wouldn't be surprised if it was one of the regime's riot cops who did it, out of pity or impatience.

The New York Times has a lot of good coverage of yesterday's mob invasion in the Lede blog. No British diplomats were killed or injured, so in the end it was all just good clean fun.