His cold ears

Hundreds of people marched out into the bitter cold of a February morning to watch the demolition of the Tandem Generator Building. Jokes are made about the vibrations knocking neighbouring buildings down, about doing anything to get a break from the office, about the our hopes that the guy from our office standing on the roof of a nearby building is getting nice and cold. I've never seen this many people on site gathered in one place; I didn't realise there were this many people on site.

At about eleven o'clock the sound of the detonation is heard, and everyone looks to the building. There is a cloud of dust, and then . . . nothing. The building is still standing.

There is silence for a couple of seconds, and then the crowd start heckling the building and the demolition team. The guy next to me shouts, 'What a balls-up'. Someone else makes a loud comment about them having 'missed'. The building refuses to fall down.

We're freezing our asses off, but we wait a five minutes, just in case a strong gust should do what the people in yellow jackets couldn't. It doesn't, and the building stands for another three hours.