by Arsonists across east London were prepared to concede that they may have taken David Cameron’s Keep The Flame Alive campaign too literally last night after setting fire to an entire industrial estate.
As fire crews battled to contain the largest fire in the capital since 1666, the PM insisted ‘No, that’s not what I meant’.
While many Londoners spent yesterday afternoon investing in specialist breathing apparatus, firestarters celebrated their misunderstanding of the concept of metaphor by staging their own version of the Olympic torch relay using bits of the letter “W” from the Carpet Warehouse.
Bystanders, meanwhile, claimed the flames were ‘inspirational’ and accused the London Fire Brigade of failing to honour the spirit of the campaign.
London fire
The blaze began at a recycling centre at 1.15pm on Sunday afternoon and by 3.00pm was already visible from the International Space Station.
Astronaut Dirk Bradley said, “Woo – hoo! Way to go London!”
Meanwhile, punters in the nearby Olympic Stadium agreed the blaze had already eclipsed the London 2012 closing ceremony in terms of value for money.
Sports fan Simon Williams told us, “Although at 9pm the smoke wasn’t quite strong enough to prevent Annie Lennox from singing, as little as an hour later the increased ferocity of the blaze provided a welcome distraction from a set by the Spice Girls.”
The girls were later forced to cut short a version of ‘When Two Become One’ when sections of Geri Halliwell’s face began to melt away under the heat, compromising an otherwise confident vocal performance.
The inferno was, however, welcomed by pensioners across the whole of London, many of whom switched off their gas fires and went outside to warm their hands.
Cameron added, “We will of course be deducting this from their winter heating allowance.”
