Nanny Bans Needles

Dear oh dear, what a nation of pussies Nanny is trying to turn us in to.

Nanny's chums in the Health and Safety Gestapo have put their size ten jackboots into the humble practice of knitting. Seemingly knitting needles are now deemed to be as dangerous as knives.

For three years at the Congleton War Memorial Hospital, in Cheshire, it has been a simple way for hospital visitors to make a difference while they wait. Patients and relatives have been asked to knit a small square, to be turned into blankets for local charities.

The Health and Safety Gestapo have now ruled that knitting needles are too sharp to be used safely.

Now you have to ask permission at the hospital's reception, before being handed a knitting needle.

Tory MP Philip Davies makes no bones about it:

"Whoever made this decision is completely barmy.

It is a typical act by a bureaucratic jobsworth

with too much time on their hands and nothing to do.

People young and old have been knitting for

centuries at home. When was the last time

you heard of a spate of knitting needle accidents?"

Bernie Salisbury, director of nursing and operations at East Cheshire NHS Trust, said:

"We believe this sensible and

proactive measure will avoid preventable accidents."

Knobhead!

Also banned in charity shops!

The Joy of Salt

Nanny Knows Best now contains 958 articles detailing the evils of the Nanny state, the very first article I wrote on the 18th of September 2004 about Nanny's campaign against salt was entitled "Sid The Slug".

Why this little history lesson?

Today I now have incontrovertible proof that Nanny, in her campaign against salt, was talking a load of bollocks.

Salt is, in fact, good for you.

Yesterday I had to go to the dentist, as one of my teeth had shattered and lost a filling (in fact two other fillings had also been lost a few years ago...but I have an aversion to dentists, needles and having tools poked into my mouth, so I have chickened out until now).

However, I took the bull by the horns yesterday and gritted my teeth (what was left of them) and duly proceeded (via a pub) to the dentist.

I was expecting to be told that there was decay in at least two of the teeth that had lost the fillings.

Guess what?

Not a sign of decay!

Why was this?

Simple, as my dentist explained, were I cursed with a sweet tooth then I would be riddled with decay. However, dear readers, I am not sweet toothed I consume a diet based on flesh and salt. It is that diet of flesh and salt that in fact has saved my teeth.

Salt is good!

I would in fact point out that many years ago, when I was a small child, my mum would buy blocks of sea salt (12 inches, by 4 inches, by 4 inches) wrapped in blue paper. She would give me the task of shaving them down with a knife (ooh, aren't knives dangerous), and whilst doing so I would always take a chunk and crunch on it..I like salt.

Indeed my grandfather, on my mum's side of the family, always had a few packets of salt in his pocket which he would munch on. He died aged 84 or so.

Salt is good for you!

Nanny's campaign against salt is therefore founded on nothing but flaky science and a lack of research.

FYI, those looking for a first class dentist in the Croydon area should try bluedental (Eva and I are very impressed with them)....and no, they haven't paid me for giving them a free plug.

Nanny Bans Yews

When you walk down the street, have you ever wondered about the threats to your general health and safety that lurk in the seemingly innocent shrubbery that surrounds you?

Fortunately Nanny is here to look after us!

She has made full risk assessment of the shrubs and foliage that we take for granted, and has decided that Yew hedges pose a clear and present danger to our existence.

That at least is what Nanny's trolls in Avonmouth Council have decided.

Yew hedges growing near a city play area have been ripped up, because the council decided that they could poison a child.

Earth, if eaten in sufficiently large quantities can also be poisonous; would they have that removed from the planet as well?

The hedges were planted around Blaise Castle's new cafe and play area, which opened in May last year. I would note that the cost of planting was around £5K.

However, they were removed because Nanny's braindead jobsworths have received a complaint from a busybody parent who claimed that the needles from the hedges were poisonous and should not be allowed close to a children's play area.

Proof, if ever it were needed, that some people should not be allowed to have children.

Council workers have now ripped up the Yews in the "danger area". The irony is that there are other areas where this most dangerous of plants is still allowed to grow.

Nanny's trolls in the council now admit that the hedges are more likely to be a danger to cows and horses than humans, but decided ripping them out was the "safest" thing to do after the complaints.

One resident, Mrs Santry,vented her spleen at the council saying:

"How absolutely ludicrous when there are fully grown yew trees all around the estate,

not to mention belladonna also known as deadly nightshade, in the woods,

poisonous fungi in the autumn,

dogs mess,

sticks,

stones,

lakes."

City council spokeswoman Kate Hartas said:

"Yew is poisonous but it also tastes foul, so it would take a very determined person to eat enough to hurt themselves.

Nevertheless, the council decided that,

as the cafe is very close to the children's play park,

the safest thing would be to remove it."

Nanny is speaking with forked tongue; it is not about safety at all, it is in fact about making us totally reliant on her so that we will not even be able to wipe our backsides without her assistance.

Life is all about learning to cope with risk and disaster, by trying to eliminate risk (which is of course impossible) Nanny is ensuring that future generations will grow up without the necessary survival instincts and skills for living a full and rewarding life.

Do yourselves a favour this coming May and stick two fingers up at your local council and Nanny, by voting for the candidates who totally reject the Nanny state.

If you live in Croydon, or know someone who does, then vote CRACC.

Nanny Bans Knitting Needles

When I was a little kid, pre school, I used to be dragged off by mother to the shops from time to time.

One of her regular stops would be a knitting shop, which was bulging to the seams with brightly coloured yarns and a vast array of fearsome knitting needles.

Now at this stage, I guess you think that I am going to engage in some misty eyed self indulgent reminiscences about my childhood and the simple pleasure that I took in looking at the colours of the yarns etc.

Er no!

I found the whole experience totally tedious, and wished only instead to be at home watching Top Cat.

Sorry folks!

Anyhoo, tempus fugit, now the knitting shop is long since closed (although I can still watch Top Cat on Cartoon Network) and my mother can only buy her knitting needles from charity shops these days.

At least that was the case until Nanny, not much of a knitter (more of a nit...Ha!Ha!), came along and stuck her hooter (for the benefit of my American audience hooter=nose not booby) into it.

It seems that Nanny has decreed that knitting needles are in fact dangerous, and has therefore placed them on a list of proscribed products that cannot be sold at charity shops.

This was highlighted on Radio 4's You and Yours last year and is still happening, that is at least according to one of my trusted sources.

If you want knitting needles, you have to find an assistant and ask if they have any for sale "on the sly", much like you would buy beef on the bone a few years ago (which I did regularly during the mad cow scare).

Other proscribed items include; gas appliances, oil heaters, riding hats, glasses, ear rings etc

I normally don't bother putting links in, but the report is a hoot so here it is knitting needles ban.

We truly live in a very odd country indeed!

Nanny Bans Bicycles

Nanny issues so many warnings and instructions to us, about how we should live our lives, that she sometimes gets herself into a bit of a muddle.

Poor old Nanny!

One such instance of this mental confusion occurred the other day.

Nanny's chums in Bournemouth District Health Trust have banned nurses in their area from cycling.

Why?

Obvious really, it seems that Nanny is worried that the nurses will be attacked and their syringes and needles will be stolen.

Nanny seems to have forgotten that she has told us to take more exercise.

District nurse Kathy Archer, who does her rounds by bike, thinks that this is bollocks.

She has never been attacked, and notes that cycling keeps her fit, cuts pollution and saves her trust £1,000 a year in fuel bills.

The Royal College of Nursing also thinks that the ban is bollocks, though they in fact use a far more polite word:

"Nonsense".