Finally, some sense in this mad, mad world
My apologies for bringing you a Christmas story this early in the year, but Mr Stuart started it with his rant about Yucknuggets™. Yesterday, however, I stumbled upon a story that filled me with an unusually warm sense of festive cheer.
Safety costs force couple to scrap Christmas lights.
I've long wondered just what is the point of the Health and Safety Executive. Mostly it seems to be there just to make life difficult. But here, in its petty bureaucracy, I can see some small piece of usefulness. If its mad workings mean fewer of these tacky, mindless, horrible displays of kitsch, then maybe it's not all bad.
But, I hear you say as you desperately try to justify this annual insanity of light pollution and wasted electricity, they do it for charidee. Well, bollocks. If you want to raise a few thousand quid for starving orphans or dreadful diseases, do something useful. Like quad-biking from John-O-Groats to Land's End, for example.
Sadly, at the moment, the HSE only sends in the thought police when the public are given access to these tawdry displays of rampant consumerism. So most of the private lights will probably still be polluting the dark nights this year, causing road accidents and grumpiness. But the way things are going it can only be a matter of time before all christmas lights are banned - our prime minister is, after all, the epitome of the dour Presbyterian killjoy. With austerity the new political buzzword, there should be no place for such frippery as Christmas lights, tinsel or baubles.
In fact, why not just cancel Christmas altogether?
Safety costs force couple to scrap Christmas lights.
I've long wondered just what is the point of the Health and Safety Executive. Mostly it seems to be there just to make life difficult. But here, in its petty bureaucracy, I can see some small piece of usefulness. If its mad workings mean fewer of these tacky, mindless, horrible displays of kitsch, then maybe it's not all bad.
But, I hear you say as you desperately try to justify this annual insanity of light pollution and wasted electricity, they do it for charidee. Well, bollocks. If you want to raise a few thousand quid for starving orphans or dreadful diseases, do something useful. Like quad-biking from John-O-Groats to Land's End, for example.
Sadly, at the moment, the HSE only sends in the thought police when the public are given access to these tawdry displays of rampant consumerism. So most of the private lights will probably still be polluting the dark nights this year, causing road accidents and grumpiness. But the way things are going it can only be a matter of time before all christmas lights are banned - our prime minister is, after all, the epitome of the dour Presbyterian killjoy. With austerity the new political buzzword, there should be no place for such frippery as Christmas lights, tinsel or baubles.
In fact, why not just cancel Christmas altogether?
Comments
The reason I did it? I'd needed to get over being off my bike for 8 weeks following a collision with a BMW.
It seemed like a good idea at the time...
Secondly, I wonder what the US would have to do to start this sort of safety fee thing for people who decorate their houses. My god some people just don't know when to stop...