Ooh Err Missus!Nanny has taken up stripping...the stripping of conkers from a large horse chestnut tree, in Queen's Walk Nottingham, that is.
Nottingham council decided to take up stripping after a four-year-old girl was injured by a stick thrown into the tree last year.
According to Michael Williams, the city council's corporate director of communities, the tree is the largest and most accessible horse chestnut in the area.
All very well, my sympathies to the injured girl etc, but what of all the other horse chestnut trees?
The issue is not that of the conkers, but of the manner in which the conkers were being dislodged.
Sticks have been thrown at horse chestnuts for centuries, does Nanny seriously believe that (short of stripping all horse chestnuts in the entire country) she will stop this practice?
This is simply not a practical policy.
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I'm sure there are some people out there that would happily see every tree in this green land chopped down or fenced off with a 3m exclusion zone from the furthest branch.
ReplyDeleteWe should, of course, be re-directing the ax towards more useful chopping...perhaps involving blocks and public demonstrations? ;)
Surely the answer is to BAN the throwing of sticks? Introduce a new bye-law (do we still have those under the EUSSR?), and employ some "Stick" wardens....
ReplyDeleteProble is, kids enjoy playing conkers.....Nanny hates people enjoying themselves, unless under Nanny's direct supervision, and therefore Nanny must take away the source of that enjoyment.....So what's next?,....Official conker plantations staffed by Hi-Viz clad "officers" with all safety equipment in place,(hard hats, toetectors etc)offering state controlled conker games as long as the would be player has taken an approved course and purchased the right license to play.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid, there were two places from where we could get conkers – trees in the grounds of the local mental hospital and trees lining the ring road. Each site had it’s own risks. To get to the trees in the hospital you had to scale a 6ft fence and run the gauntlet of the groundsman’s wrath whereas at the ring road you had to take care that you weren’t in the way of any passing traffic.
ReplyDeleteOK, every so often someone would fall from the fence, get a clip round the earhole from the groundsman or be unlucky enough to be hit by a car but the majority of us quickly learned to avoid those things, rather like avoiding the hazard of being hit on the head by your own (or your mate’s) sticks. If you were at the ring road and your stick came down on a car you learned to run fast too.
You didn’t see many fat kids round our way back then – strange, isn’t it?
Well that is one job that could be cut, who the hell needs a "director of communities" anyway.
ReplyDeleteDerek
Derek
ReplyDeletethose communities don't direct themselves you know, at least not in approved directions
Chris
"We should, of course, be re-directing the ax towards more useful chopping...perhaps involving blocks and public demonstrations?"
ReplyDeleteAnd I can think of quite a few people whom, if they were relieved of their heads, it would be a great benefit to society, Mr Potato Head!
I couldn't agree with you more, Anonymous_1 and 2. Approved by whom, Anonymous_3? The council tax paying public or some elf'n'safety jobsworth?