IT manager sorts emItalian Job/em cliffhanger
A Surrey IT manager has won three nights in Turin for sorting The Italian Job's cliffhanger ending, having successfully forged a cunning, highly practical plan to save the gold.
Michael Caine's Charlie Croker and his gang are left in a bit of a tight spot at the film's finale, as their bus teeters over a ravine and they have have to decide whether to save their own lives or try to retrieve the 3.2 tons of ingots whose weight threatens to take the vehicle over the edge.
The Royal Society of Chemistry last year invited the public to suggest what Croker's famous "great idea" for securing the booty might be, and received over 2,000 entries.
Of the shortlist of five, the honours went to 39-year-old John Godwin of Godalming.
The Telegraph explains that the plans starts with the robbers smashing outwards two large central windows just "air-side" of the bus's pivot. One of the gang can then lean out and smash two smaller windows above the front axles - in this case inwards, to retain their weight on the land-side of the pivot.
