Mankind has been creating, and living with, fire for thousands of years. How foolish of us to mess around with such a dangerous creation. However, we are very fortunate to be living in the age of Nanny.Nanny has recognised that fire is bad, and that it should be extinguished at all times.
Hence, Nanny has decided that the candles are a dangerous product. In view of the danger represented by candles, Nanny has decreed that the candles used in the Christingle service at Chelmsford Cathedral (first begun in 1747) should be banned.
Her fear?
The children carrying the candles at the Christingle service may set fire to their hair.
The fact that there have never been any incidents of children running screaming from the cathedral with their hair ablaze does not concern Nanny.
She is adamant that the candles must be banned. However, fear not, Nanny has thought up an ideal alternative solution to real fire.
She will replace the candles with fluorescent glow sticks, set in oranges!
How very "Nu Labour"!
Eric Pickles, MP for Brentwood and Ongar, thinks that the idea is bollocks.
Quote:
"Eventually, they will work out a way to take all the fun out of Christmas.
Health and safety will ban everything.
I would be kind of interested to hear when the last time an orange
and a candle set fire to a child's hair."
Richard Spilsbury, one of the organisers, said some parents had raised concerns about their children's hair catching fire.
Parents who deny their children any form of responsibility for their own safety are denying them the right to grow, develop and learn; in effect they are stunting their growth.
Isn't that a form of abuse?
Umm don't glow sticks contain nasty chemicals a child might attempt to drink....
ReplyDelete...and doesn't glow stick, represent rave culture & in turn, promote drugs...?
ReplyDelete"REACH FOR THE LASERS..." and all that?!
Does hair, under normal circumstances, even catch fire?
ReplyDeleteThe only person I can remember hearing about whose hair actually caught fire was Michael Jackson, years ago, when a light fell on his head during a concert. But we will assume that the chemical potions applied to his hair probably served as a volatile catalyst.
t seems to me that "unprocessed" hair mostly just sort of singes and crinkles up. What are the chances of it actually bursting into flames? Perhaps Nanny should fund some university laboratory experiments into the likelihood of such phenomena occuring. She might want to revisit the threat of crop circles while she is at it.
This post is fairly misleading. While you don't provide links to your sources and quotes, I found and read two news articles on this story.
ReplyDeleteFirst, neither indicates some outside government body made this decision. It was made by the organizers themselves based on their experience from last year when the event was particularly crowded ("jam packed"). I assumed from your post that some petty, outside official forced this decision on the group based on nothing more than wild speculation about remote dangers, which is not the case. So maybe this decision was a bad call, but it is a different situation from many of the other stories on this website.
Second, this "Nanny" is not "adamant" that the candles be banned. Here are two quotes from one of the organizers, Richard Spilsbury:
"I know it sounds a bit of a kill-joy but we thought we would give this alternative a try."
"But if it doesn't work, we will go back to candles. We don't want to spoil things but we also don't want to put anyone in danger."
Spilsbury does not sound adamant to me. He also does not sound like Nanny's petty officials, who are much less likely to admit their decisions are open to question.
If you are familair with the site, you will be aware that Nanny comes in many forms eg; government, local councils, local busybodies, foolish parents etc.
ReplyDeleteNanny is, as Nanny does.
I do actually read this site regularly, but in this particular instance, I was disappointed once I read the news reports of the story. It no longer satisfied my need for a daily busybody outrage!
ReplyDelete-Same Anonymous as #3 (a regular reader in the U.S.A.)
Oops, I meant "Same Anonymous as #4." Okay, next time I'll just pick a name.
ReplyDeleteHave faith Anom (3, 4 etc)
ReplyDeleteI am sure I can outrage you in the coming days:)
Ken
Anonymous 3 or 4,
ReplyDeleteNanny is so much more than you imagine. Nanny is bound by neither space nor time, much less the confines of some petty bureaucracy or short-lived regime.
Nanny is a way of life, a state of mind, a global gestalt, a wearisome weltanshaung (sp?). . . her minions may come and go, her trolls may wax and wane, but Nanny endureth from generation to generation.
"I am large, I contain multitudes"
- Nanny, speaking through the voice of Walt Whitman
"As you are, I was. As I am, you shall be."
- Nanny, speaking through some egomaniacal Nazi, I forget which one
"You asked me once what was in Room 101. I told you that you knew the answer already. Everyone knows it. The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world."
-Nanny, speaking through the voice of O'Brian
"Speaking only for myself, it's hard to keep things in perspective and in the categories. . .. Why do you ask me these questions at 5:00?"
- Nanny, speaking through the voice of Silvestre Reyes, the new Democratic Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, as he (she) explains his (her) difficulties in defining what "Hezbollah" is, and in remembering whether Al Qadea is a Sunni or Shiite organization. (He managed to guess wrong.) Rep. Reyes has sat on the intelligence subcommittee since before 9/11, 2001, so things in Washington are definitely looking up.
Nanny is ubiquitious.
Slighty off topic, but I have let my 7 year old start using the gas coker, she can now do cheese on toast (with a sprinkle of mixed herbs! what are they being taught at school!) What is the prescribed age to let a minor loose with a potentially explosive household apliance? Or should I be letting the school teach her basic skills now?
ReplyDeleteBasic skills like spelling - I know!!
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 3/4 - Come to England and experience Nanny first hand! (That's providing you're not an ex-pat).
ReplyDeleteYou'll soon know what NKB is about.
Black Sea, it's spelt "Weltanschauung" (yep, two u's).
ReplyDeleteThe whole thing gives me Welschmertz. There seems to be a whole section of society devoted to looking into every single innocent thing people do and not stopping until they've found a way of banning, limiting or suppressing it.