Nanny has something of a horror of seeing children, or indeed adults, enjoy themselves. Frivolity, in her world, is a waste of time and energy and should be stamped out.Needless to say, the sound of Greensleeves and the sight of a brightly coloured van selling ice cream is regarded by Nanny as being just toooo frivolous. Therefore she has decided that Mr Whippy, and his chums, should be banned from selling their highly dangerous and evil ice cream near schools.
Mr Whippy and his chums have been playing Greensleeves and selling ice cream to generations of British kids, and their parents, for the past 60 years. Now Nanny's chums in the health lobby have decided that ice-cream vans are a danger to children's health.
An amendment to the Education and Inspection Bill will be put forward this week. In the amendment, local authorities will be given new powers to stop ice-cream vans from operating near school gates.
This miserable bastard move comes on top of regulations being imposed by local authorities that ban ice-cream vans from using pay-and-display parking spaces, and rules that set up "ice-cream-free" exclusion zones around busy shopping streets.
Nanny's chums in Newham council informed Mr Whippy and his mates last month that it would fine van owners up to £80 if they used pay-and-display bays. Greenwich council has banned the vans from its streets altogether.
Miserable, sad, pathetic, jobsworth, bastards!
West Dunbartonshire council has introduced an exclusion zone around schools for vans.
As one dietitian said, all this daft ban will do is push the children into buying less healthy food and sweets at their local store.
Catherine Collins, the chief dietitian at St George's Hospital, Tooting said:
"This is the kind of blanket ban that gives the health lobby a bad name.
A healthy diet can factor in a sugary treat such as an ice-cream.
It is the frequency of that treat that is an issue.
Most choices from an ice-cream van would provide fewer calories and fat compared to a free choice from a newsagent."
Nanny is having none of that. Chris Waterman, the executive director of the Confederation of Education and Children's Services Managers (eh?), said:
"There are millions going into healthy food in schools, yet kids are rushing to spend their money on food from mobile vans
(Editor's note: it's called the free market matey!)
The ice-cream van industry may be saying it is in meltdown but for the sake of our children's health and safety we should keep the icons at Bournemouth and Blackpool but stop them driving around schools."
Twat!
As ever Nanny fails to make the distinction between a once in a while treat, and a daily overindulgence. If you are stupid enough to eat tons of ice cream every day then you will make yourself ill, but then that's your choice surely?
For the record a large single ice cream cone contains about 139 calories. A chocolate Flake adds about 100 calories.
A Mars Bar contains nearly 300 calories.
Will Nanny be banning those as well?
The next step that Nanny will be taking is to regulate and monitor what children eat outside the school gates, ie she will be insisting on regulating what they (and their parents) eat at home.
Are you happy with letting her do that?
"West Dunbartonshire council has introduced an exclusion zone around schools for vans."
ReplyDeleteOh dear. Once again my home Council (for my sins) covers itself in glory.
Accusations of cronyism and corruption in the ruling Labour group, endemic poverty, shocking services, high levels of crime and drug abuse. Clearly none of those issues are as important as sticking your neb in and making yourself seem important.
Council Tax money well spent.....
Ye gods!! Why can't these Orwellian bastards keep their big noses out of other people's business!! If I want to stuff myself with ice-cream, then nothing, not hell, high water nor Act of God will stop me, let alone the rose-tinted view of Nanny and her purring cronies.
ReplyDeleteI think it would be a better place if they were all taken out by a baseball-bat-wielding maniac. *grabs bat* Well, I have to get to work. Bye!!
When I was at school, an ice-cream van drove into the "junior quad" (as the "masters" insisted on calling it) every lunchtime and parked bang in the middle; whence a certain Mr G*****, driver and proprietor thereof, would dispense all kinds of vile stuff, including sherbet fountains whose contents, if incautiously sucked up through the licquorice straw, would froth uncontrollably in the sinuses, much to the mirth of one's fellows. Mr G***** wore a neck-brace, which presumably accounted for his relative inattention to personal hygiene, showering being a trial for the old chap. His fingernails were always filthy, likewise his horny hands and frayed cuffs. He sold us many an ice-cream cornet, and many an ice-cream brickette stuck between two wafers, often bearing his visible fingerprints (especially when he had earlier been attending to something under the bonnet), yet none of us, to my certain knowledge, was infected with E. coli 0571 (is that the right number? Or is it H5N1? No, that's bird 'flu, the deadliest disease known to man, which has already swept the world and killed 3 billion people).
ReplyDeleteAnyhoo, to borrow Ken's term, I now come to the crux of this rambling disquisition, which is:
1. We were not overweight. Or if we were, it was because we hid in the bushes rather than complete the Iron Man triathlon devised for us twice weekly by the sadistic gym master, Mr W***, whom God rot for the tosser he was.
2. We are all alive today, except a fellow who unfortunately crashed his car.
3. We were happy -- because we had never heard of Tony Blair, Tessa Jowell, Margaret Hodge, or that ghastly Hewitt thing.
4. We lived in England, and were glad of it, having been informed in all seriousness that "God is an Englishman" and "to be born British is to win first prize in the lottery of life".
5. Look at the place now. Nuff said.
Fat Owl
ReplyDeleteWe had an ice cream van that drove into our "quad" (at the shcool I was at between the ages of 7-11) too every day during the summer.
I regularly purchased a 99, and now at the grand old age of 42 I am in perfect health and am not overweight.
Yah booh to Nanny and her miserable sour faced chums.
Nanny can tuck off in fact!
The milky bars are on me folks!
Ken
Perhaps the ice cream van owners could kick up a furore about having their human rights violated as a minority group. After all if this council were to turn round and ban (sorry exclude) a Halal food seller from selling their wares near a school I'm sure every human rights lawyer in the country would be scrambling to bring a case.
ReplyDeleteOh and as a child we had ice cream vans parked at both the junior and senior gates at school as well as in just about every park we were likely to visit after school and once a day one would come and park in our street just in case we needed a wafer or a 99 to help us with our homework. The difference being that we partook responsibly, something that kids today obviously cannot be trusted to do according to Nanny.
My brother was man with a van selling an ice cream for a while, even in a hot climate he didn't make enough to pay the rent, groceries, etc. It was nice to have cash every day, but it just wasn't enough, and he worked 10 hours a day at it, besides.
ReplyDeleteA van always parks outside our school at lunchtime and yes gets good business and oh guess what none, thats right absolutly none of the children buying the ice creams are fat. Infact considering its one of the lrgest schools in the country not that many peole buy them. Give us some credit, we know whats good for us and w
ReplyDeleteil choose to go and buy ice cream as a treat if we choose, we will not stuff our faces every day. I'm sick of everyone saying the tenagers today are all over weight. come to my school, see for yourself, most are infact skinny sticks with the size zero trend coming in!! Things like obese teenagers on the news is one of the reasons I'm anorexic!