Nanny Bans Pens

The penis...Oops sorry...spelling mistake!

Start again Ken.

The pen is mightier than the sword, or so the old saying goes.

Evidently Nanny believes in these old sayings, as her chums in the British Standards Institution (BSI) have decreed that fountain pens are too dangerous for children under the age of 14.

Rather frightening to know that for decades children have been using these dangerous instruments, now to be told by Nanny that they can't. I myself had one at the tender age of 10, and ink blotted and smudged exercise books galore with it.

It seems that the BSI are worried that children, who apparently these days are congenital morons (if Nanny were to be believed), will swallow the cap.

Nanny has got so excised by this latest threat to civilisation that she has persuaded Waterman, the well known pen manufacturer, to insert a small slip with its pens which reads:

"This product is not intended for use by anyone under the age of 14 years."

Regrettably, owing to the failure of Nanny's education system, many children are in fact unable to read/understand this warning.

British Standard 7272, drafted in 1990 and updated several times, sets out strict guidelines on how pens should be made.

It says a pen cap should have a small hole to allow a child to breathe if he or she swallows it. Pens with no hole are seen as unsuitable for under-14s.

Needless to say nothing is ever simple in Nanny's Lah Lah Land, some adult pens are now defined as jewellery and therefore fall outside of BS 7272.

Kevin Jones, the headmaster of St John's College School, Cambridge, with 460 pupils aged four to 13, said:

"Perhaps I will have to employ pen police."

Don't joke, I am sure that there will be a some form of Nanny Citizens' Militia formed to deal with this threat.

Nanny Continues To Ban Christmas

I don't know why Nanny has such a bee in her bonnet about Christmas, but here is yet another example of her acting as a kill joy.

Nanny's chums in Waveney council in Lowestoft are planning to scrap grants for festive lights, because Christmas does not fit in with its "core values of equality and diversity".

Pardon my language, but what a load of....can you guess what I am going to say?..

UTTER BOLLOCKS!

A report drawn up by the council, then admits that the move could lead to officials being accused of "not supporting the spirit of Christmas".

Waveney council normally provides grants totalling £10K for festive lights. Its report states that because Christmas focuses only on the Christian faith, continuing the funding would "not fit well with the council's core values of equality and diversity".

The council is proposing to cut the lights grants to £5K next year and to stop them altogether by 2007.

Mark Bee, the council leader, tried to pretend that that the cuts were merely to save money. He said:

"I consider the wording of the document unfortunate and I will be taking it up with the officer on Monday..."

Too late, the proverbial cat is out of the bag Mr Bee!

So stupid, non Christians are in no way offended by the Christmas celebrations; this sort of ban is just patronising and daft.

Nanny Bans Remembrance

Today 87 years ago, the First World War ended. This Sunday, in the UK, it is Remembrance Sunday.

Normally, in the seaside town of Walton Essex, war veterans fire maroons at the beginning and the end of the two minute silence on Remembrance Sunday hedl at the Royal National Lifeboat (RNLI) station.

However, this year Nanny has decided to ban the maroons.

It seems that Nanny's chums in the RNLI HQ have sent a memo to all their lifeboat stations, warning them not to fire maroons because they could misfire or debris could be blown back to shore by the wind.

John Halls, the chairman of the local Royal British Legion, said he was "very sad" that the decades-old tradition had come to an end.

"When we fire the lifeboat maroons in any coastal town where there is a memorial service, it is a reminder of the people who fought for this country."

The people of Walton now plan to use fireworks instead.

Doesn't Nanny disapprove of them as well?

Nanny Bans Bonfires Again

Guy Fawkes night has just been and gone for another year; most of us managed to survive it unscathed, despite Nanny's warnings of doom and disaster.

Nonetheless, Nanny's chums in Test Valley Council Hampshire tried their very best to dampen the local residents' attempts to enjoy themselves on the 5th.

The residents were told by Nanny to spend their evening more constructively, composting their garden waste!

In a leaflet, the Test Valley Council, claimed that smoke from bonfires annoyed neighbours, made people ill and drifted over roads.

The council went on to warn that smoke, ash and smell polluted the environment and damaged people's health, especially those suffering from asthma, bronchitis or heart conditions.

It also warned of the dangers posed by bonfires spreading to surrounding fences and shrubs, as well as smoke causing traffic hazards.

The British people have been organising bonfires for the last 400 years, since the Gunpowder Plot was uncovered; we have managed to survive, and the country has yet to be engulfed in flames.

Nanny should really find something better to do with her time.

A Room With A View

Nanny has so many projects on the go, and so many people working for her (around 7 million now work for the state), that she constantly needs to take more money from her "charges" in order to fund her Nanny State.

Her plans for raising money next year, via a revaluation of the council tax, were thwarted by political expediency. The revaluation was postponed, because Nanny feared a backlash during the general election over higher council tax bills.

However, the election is now over, and Nanny is never thwarted for long in her desire to screw us for more tax. The review of council tax was merely postponed; have no fear, one is coming.

Nanny then came up with a particularly clever wheeze the other day, that would kill two birds with one stone; on the one hand it would raise extra revenue, and on the other it would give all those naughty people who live in "nice" areas a slap for being so bourgeois (Nanny hates the middle classes).

Nanny has decided to reintroduce that old tax favourite of the Middle Ages, the window tax. However, this time she will adapt it to the 21st century; council taxes will rise for those properties that Nanny considers to have a "nice view".

How very scientific!

Officials preparing the ground for the forthcoming revaluation exercise have been told to gather data on whether homes have views, roof terraces and large patios. Nanny has assigned "value significance codes" to 66 features of properties; ie if the box saying patio or golf course is ticked, it means your property is worth more.

Can you guess who is in charge of this revaluation exercise?



Yes that's right, John Prescott (Nanny's Smooth Talking Bar Steward)!

With Nanny's Smooth Talking Bar Steward in charge, you just know that this will work; don't you?

Nanny Scares Children

Nanny felt a little left out of the Halloween celebrations this year, and has decided that although it was over a week ago she would still like to give someone a fright; just to show us that she is human.

Now she put her thinking cap on and wondered, who would it be best to frighten?

The elderly?

No, she frightens them on a daily basis with her council tax and crime stats.

Working adults?

No she frightens them with her tax rises and health care system.

Wait a minute, what about children?

Brilliant, she hasn't frightened them for a while.

Therefore she got together with her chums at the British Heart Foundation (BHF), and formulated a campaign to scare children about fast food.

This way she kills two birds with one stone, she gives the kids a scare and pisses off the fast food industry (which she hates with venom).

Brilliant!

An awareness campaign called Food4Thought found that more than a third of 8-14 year olds had no clue what the main ingredient in potato chips was (some children answered oil, eggs, apples, and flour). Additionally, another nearly 4 in ten of them did not know that milk was the primary item that comprised cheese.

What does this tell us about many children in this country?

They are pig ignorant.

How has this appalling level of ignorance come about?

Parents no longer spend time with their children, in the kitchen, showing them how to cook.

Why?

Nanny has told parents that both of them must work, and parents have happily handed over the upbringing (aside from just the basic 3 R's) to Nanny.

A very dangerous state of affairs indeed.

The BHF has a solution to this, they intend to put up over 600,000 posters all across the UK that show the contents of an average chicken nugget and hot dog (gristle, bone, chicken scrotum and general gunge of that ilk).

This, in their view, will help educate children and deter them from mindlessly consuming foods that they have no idea what it is made of.

Peter Hollins, the director general of the BHF, said:

"Kids have lost touch with the most basic foods and no longer understand what they are eating.

Banning foods or telling children not to eat them is not enough - we must engage children in understanding why certain foods are less healthy than others."

Notice how easily Nanny uses the word "ban" whenever she pontificates on a subject that she disapproves of.

The trouble is, best practice with respect to eating is learnt at home; until parents wrest responsibility for the upbringing of their children from Nanny, change and improvement will not occur.

Relying on Nanny to sort out this mess, merely gives her more power over our daily lives.