Acid Isonitrile
Having survived the Great Thermit Demonstration I developed an interest in Chemistry-or should I say in things that went bang, produced horrible smells, or preferably both.

Much to my amazement I passed my O level, and in a fit of misplaced enthusiasm decided to make it one of my A level subjects.

Not such a good idea, far too many complex theoretical equations, not enough explosions. Organic chemistry was particularly tedious.The delights of synthesizing various white powders that could neither be smoked, snorted, or ignited soon began to pall. Until one fateful day when we were introduced to the delights of Isonitriles. Apparently their vile smell was legendary, and we were going to be allowed to make some!!!!!

Alas, with only one drop of each of the required reagents allowed the pungent smell was only transitory, and after sniffing-then retching-we had to add a drop of caustic soda to stop the reaction.

The following weeks class involved the synthesis of yet another boring substance, but some of us realised that we could subvert the apparatus and reagents and have a proper go at bulk production of this isonitrile stuff. All went to plan, the most difficult part being to keep the teacher from enquiring too closely what exactly was going on in a quiet and somewhat odiferous corner of the lab.

Success-by the end of the double lesson we had a tightly stoppered bottle containg about 150ml of the vile liquid. The smell actually defies description. Initially it's not too bad but it sort of builds up and gets worse and worse with layer upon layer of depth and pungency. Absolutely overpoweringly gut wrenchingly awful. The big question now was what should we do with the fruits of our misplaced labours?

We used to have school on Saturday mornings, and the organic chem. lesson was the last one, after which we could go home. There is a saying that the devil finds work for idle hands. Somehow a couple of us found ourselves whizzing along to the nearest large town on my ancient BSA motor cycle.

Somehow we found ourselves browsing the racks of LP's in the quite spacious branch of W.H.Smiths

Most unfortunately one of us had said bottle of isonitrile in his pocket and proceeded to empty it down the back of the record racks in the shop-which gave us about five minutes to get out before the smell started to permeate the premises.

Coming back down the street about half an hour later,we were confronted by an empty shop, as the staff and customers had all been evacuated. A couple of fire engines were parked outside, and apparently, fireman wearing breathing apparatus were inside the shop trying to locate the source of the smell.

Fortunately it never made the local paper, and in those days CCTV had yet to be invented. Even so, we didn't go anywhere near the place again for some considerable time....
(Snabblim Dropfritt, Tue 3 Feb 2009, 13:57, 1 reply)

"things that went bang, produced horrible smells, or preferably both. "
like your mother ;-)
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Tue 3 Feb 2009, 14:01, closed)