Nanny Knows Best

Nanny Knows Best
Dedicated to exposing, and resisting, the all pervasive nanny state that is corroding the way of life and the freedom of the people of Britain.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Prats of The Millennium - QD

Prats of The Millennium

On this dreadfully wet and windy Thursday morning I feel suitably inspired to award my ultra prestigious "Prats of The Millennium" Award.

This millennium it goes to the QD Store in Stowmarket.

For why?

Just ask Lisa Innes, and her daughter Tia-Rose (aged 6).

Tia-Rose was helping her mother buy some Christmas crackers. Alas her help was rejected by the shop assistant, who refused to take the box from her on the grounds that Nanny has forbidden the sale of 'explosives' to children.

For you see loyal readers, the "snap" in the crackers contains explosives.

The sales assistant remain unmoved when it was pointed out that Tia-Rose's mother would actually be paying for them.

Ah commonsense (sigh), whatever happened to it?

The QD Store, well deserving Prats of The Millennium!

BTW, I remember as a lad buying "caps" (those tiny explosives that you put in toy guns and rockets). It was always hugely amusing to put several in the firing mechanism at one time, or indeed just to light the whole roll.

I assume they have long since been banned?

Visit The Orifice of Government Commerce and buy a collector's item.

Visit The Joy of Lard and indulge your lard fantasies.

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7 comments:

  1. Ken,

    When I first read this story in the dead tree press, I thought I had woken up in the twilight zone.

    I suppose on the checkout drone's logic, it would be illegal to take a pack of Christmas Crackers onto a plane.

    As a lad I too remember playing with caps.....I prefered to take the small round box they came in and hit it with a hammer.
    I daren't tell you what I used to do with sugar, red match heads and potassium permanganate from my chemisty set and a couple of large nuts and bolts!!

    I wonder if kids chemistry sets have been banned....I expect so.

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  2. Disgusted, Tunbridge Wells12:20 PM

    Tonk said:

    "As a lad I too remember playing with caps.....I prefered to take the small round box they came in and hit it with a hammer."

    I used to try scraping out the powder to collect enough to make a really BIG bang. I also had one of those rockets you put a cap in then threw it to go bang. I too stuffed as many caps as I could into the available space before dropping it behind old ladies.

    Tonk said

    "I daren't tell you what I used to do with sugar, red match heads and potassium permanganate from my chemisty set and a couple of large nuts and bolts!!"

    Probably similar to what I did with sugar and sodium chlorate. I also remember filling a Humbrol paint tin with the powder from 20 bangers, fitting the blue touch paper to the lid, then dropping the entire device (just as the primer ignited) down the vent pipe of a septic tank. Now that's what you call a "dirty bomb".

    Tonk said:

    "I wonder if kids chemistry sets have been banned....I expect so."

    I don't think so but they don't have anything like the Merit set I had as a 10 year old complete with meths burner so I could also bend glass tubing. Needless to say my set was sexed up with all manner of interesting chemicals I could buy from the local chemist (You definitely can't nowadays). I saw an unused Merit set like my old one at a car boot sale - it's now in my bedroom as a mementoof my sadly long gone childhood.

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  3. Lord of Atlantis3:17 PM

    What is the matter with these morons? Lisa and her daughter were attempting to purchase crackers, not a thermonuclear warhead!!! A well-deserved award!
    Yes, Tonk and Disgusted Tonbridge Wells: I too had great fun with my chemistry set in my teens. I was fortunate in that I knew a 'tame' chemist from whom I could purchase all manner of 'interesting' substances not normally available, and I was also encouraged by my science teacher at school. One of my favourite things was sodium chlorate weedkiller (not firedamped like it is today, in order to remove its potency) plus sulphuric acid: the resulting reaction forms chlorine dioxide which had the endearing characteristic of being highly unstable at room temperature, manifesting this in the form of an explosion! On another occasion, I upset one of our next door neighbours with the 'bang' resulting from dropping a piece of potassium into a jamjar containing sulphuric acid. When the neighbour, whom my dad didn't get on with, complained my dad told me to carry on, or words to that effect! On the other hand, my mum was, for some strange reason, less understanding the time I made some hydrogen sulphide which wafted into the kitchen just as she was dishing up Sunday lunch!
    Happy Days!
    I imagine chemistry sets which one can legally purchase in the brave new world of the 21st century have been so diluted and dumbed down that they contain very little of interest to today's youngsters. I also bet that if one attempted to purchase the kind of interesting things we had back in the 1960s today, the result would be having one's front door kicked in by armed police and being arrested under the prevention of terrorism legislation!

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  4. Anonymous6:30 PM

    Did someone mention explosions? Don't get me started on explosions.

    I boiled an egg for breakfast this morning. After 15 minutes I took it out of the saucepan and took the shell off, but for some strange reason it was still soft. So I thought I'd put it into the microwave oven for a few seconds just to harden it up a bit.

    Admittedly, the concept of eggs and microwave ovens immediately gives me a bad feeling.
    I know you should never put an egg straight into a microwave oven unless a pin is used to make a hole in the shell etc, but as it didn't even have a shell, I thought there wouldn't be a problem.

    However, I started thinking of that episode of The Simpsons where Homer makes his last wish on a magic monkey paw for a turkey sandwich. Because all the previous wishes went badly wrong, he says: “I don't want any more surprises. I don't want a zombie turkey. I don't want to turn into a turkey myself. I just want a turkey sandwich. Got it?”

    Similarly, I thought: “It's only for 30 seconds. I don't want an explosion. I don't want doors flying off. I don't want food on the roof. I just want the egg to come out a little harder than when it went in. Got it?”.

    Anyway, after 30 seconds the oven beeped. The egg seemed fine. I took it out, put it on a plate to slice it up, and the moment the knife touched the egg, it exploded. All over the kitchen.

    Just another one of those things to put down to experience but with hindsight, 10 seconds was the better choice.

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  5. microdave6:55 PM

    An engineer at a place I worked at back in the 70's & 80's used to send me to the hardware store to buy untreated sodium chlorate weedkiller. This was made into a strong solution and a particular brand of green blotting paper was duly soaked in it.

    When dried out and cut into strips, this was rolled up and packed in small cardboard tubes, which were hooked onto a long wire strung out across the yard. Light touch paper and stand back!!

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  6. Explosives? Don't get me started on them either. My grandfather was Irish and a physicist which might explain my prediliction for large bangs whilst growing up in the 70s (although it might not explain my friends equal delight in blowing stuff up). Between Paul, Sanjeev (whose dad was a professor of physics), Dave and myself we destroyed a shed (homemade pipe bomb), a greenhouse (re-enactment of the dropping of explosive dummy parachutists on D-Day), scorched a church (homemade firework), blew up an allotment (gas canister) and even made a cannon.

    Nobody however, banned us from touching fireworks, Christmas crackers, chemistry sets, caps or matches. Yes. we might get severely bollocked after the event (Sanjeevs grandad was pretty handy with his belt after his greenhouse was destroyed) but doing such things were seen as part and parcel of the learning process whilst growing up. Our parents had done equally stupid things and had learnt from it.

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  7. David J Hilton5:21 PM

    R.I.P. this once decent country

    ReplyDelete