What The Fark?

I was in my club (The East India) on Thursday, waiting to meet someone for dinner. However, I had a mild headache approaching (not booze related).

Therefore I asked at reception if someone could give me a paracetamol. A simple enough request?

No!

Seemingly Nanny has passed a law forbidding places such as hotels, clubs and restaurants from handing out any form of painkiller (even Alka Seltzer).

The club was most apologetic, but insisted that this is law.

So there you have it, a middle aged businessman at 6:30PM is denied a simple request for one lousy paracetamol for a headache; whilst in another part of town, a 14 year old will be readily scoring drugs of any description/type or quantity without any interference from Nanny.

Am I the only one who thinks that there is something incredibly wrong here?

When the fark did this absurd law get passed?

Where the fark were the opposition parties in opposing such nonsense?

The Dangers of Enemas

I came across this rather odd little tale of woe on the newswires yesterday, and I feel that it may well have implications for us in the UK.

Negligent homicide charges have been dropped against Tammy Jean Warner, of Texas City (in the USA), who had been accused of killing her husband with a sherry enema that led to alcohol poisoning.

Yes, you did read that correctly!

Michael Warner, 58, died on May 21 2004. The autopsy showed that the poor chap had been given an enema with enough sherry to have a blood alcohol level of 0.47 percent, almost six times the legal limit of .08 percent in Texas.

Seemingly Mr Warner was addicted to enemas, and often used alcohol in them to get drunk; as one does.

It seems that on the fateful night in question, Mrs Warner gave him at least two large bottles of sherry (each being 1.5 litres...that's a big bottle), which is stronger than wine, in the enema.

You couldn't make this up could you?

Anyhoo, I rushed to check my Harveys Bristol Cream, and was horrified not to find any warning label on the bottle advising me not to use it as an enema or to put it up my bottom.

Nanny has seriously let us down by not issuing an edict forcing sherry makers to put such a warning on bottles. However, I can only assume that we will soon see them on sherry bottles.

In keeping with the spirit of the occasion here is a small video:)

Nanny Bans Bikes

As we all know, the leaders of the police in Britain are 100% focused on the safety and well being of the British citizens...unless that is of course they are drowning, or indeed not fellow police officers.

Therefore it should come as no surprise to learn that Nanny's chums in the Greater Manchester Police (where they allow schoolchildren to drown, see yesterday's article on that) have banned its officers from riding bicycles for safety reasons.

Greater Manchester Police have decreed that its officers and PCSOs must not patrol the streets on their mountain bikes. Nanny believes that the officers do not have enough training to handle road conditions across Greater Manchester.

This is rather unfortunate, as the patrols are popular with the public because they allow officers to chase criminals down narrow lanes and through parks and they act as a visible deterrent.

The ruling follows the death of PCSO Christopher Maclure, who suffered head injuries in an accident with a lorry in Wigan.

A GMP spokesman said:

"The safety of officers and staff is our first priority.

Officers should ride a police cycle only

if they have passed a competence test."

No mention of the safety of the public being their first priority!

Here's a radical suggestion, why not train people to ride the bikes?

That, I guess, would take all of one or two days?

Here, totally free of charge, is a short training video that may help the GMP train its men.

Drowning

Those of you who, having gone for a swim or who have fallen into water, find themselves in difficulties in water may find themselves in an even worse predicament in the future.

Nanny has decided that a policy of "you're on your own chum" is now to be implemented for water based "risk situations".

As such, Nanny's chums in the Devon and Cornwall Police have decreed that police officers in the region must not to hold out a hand to drowning swimmers in case they are pulled into the water themselves.

Errmmm...isn't that down to the individual police officer to make that judgement call, according to the circumstances and his/her capabilities in the water?

Clearly not!

The decree, quite unsurprisingly, comes in a health and safety policy document which says officers should also think twice before throwing a lifebelt.

You will recall that this policy of "you're on your own chum" has been tested in Greater Manchester, where two police community support officers did not enter a lake to try to save Jordon Lyon a ten-year-old boy from drowning. They were told their training had not equipped them with the skills to go in the water.

The document, Health And Safety - Water Safety - states:

"Devon and Cornwall Constabulary does not

expect or require any member of staff

to enter water in a rescue attempt of any

person or animal under any circumstances.

The task of rescuing members of the public

or animals from water lies primarily with

other emergency services that are equipped

and trained to undertake such tasks."

As if to add insult to injury, the health and safety Gestapo also decree that staff should not throw a lifebelt into the water, until they have completed a "dynamic risk assessment".

What utter BOLLOCKS!

But Graeme Hicks, a member of Devon and Cornwall Police Authority, thinks it's bollocks as well:

"It's quite unbelievable that a police officer

could walk past an incident like that and ignore it.

If a child drowned in Cornwall

in those circumstances

we would come under criticism and it

concerns me that there are

policies like this in place."

A spokesman for Devon and Cornwall Police said:

"No organisation can expect staff to risk their lives."

What planet does this guy live on?

Firemen, the armed forces, police officers, traffic wardens, the waiter who served me a tough steak the other week etc etc all risk their lives on a daily basis...that's what these jobs are about!

Big Brother

Nanny drags Britain ever further down the road of total surveillance.

Nanny's Home Orifice has announced that information about all landline and mobile phone calls, made in the UK, must now be logged and stored for a year under new laws. The data collected about calls made and received will be available to a staggering 652 public bodies, including the police and councils.

However, please do not be alarmed, Nanny has promised that the content of calls and texts would not be read.

So that's alright then!

Minister for Security and Counter-terrorism Tony McNulty attempted to turn the new rules into a nice way of helping old ladies fix their gas cookers.

Quote:

"Say some old lady has got difficulties

with someone who's repaired the gas in

her house and has a mobile phone

for somebody who's clearly dodgy.

The local authorities can just get the

subscriber information next to that number.

The second level of data is not simply

the subscriber, but also the calls made by that phone.

And the third level which is purely

for the security forces, police, etc,

is not just the subscriber information

and the calls made, but also the calls

coming in and location data -

where the calls are made from."

McNulty claims that local councils would only have access to data on "a legitimate and proportional basis".

Who the hell trusts local councils with any task, let alone one that gives them snooping rights?

The Home Orifice also promised that local councils will not use the data as a means to collect taxes....errrrmm, anyone believe that?

Prats of The Week

A grey, miserable Monday morning; what an excellent setting for me to award my coveted "Prats of The Week" Award.

This week it goes to the police in Balham and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), who decided to prosecute a schoolboy for using a rubber band to ping his mate with a piece of paper/cardboard.

Unfortunately for both boys, the paper/cardboard hit the target's eye and caused some temporary damage....Nanny then waded in....you can guess the rest.

Now read on...

The boy (12 years old), from Balham South London, was flicking bits of paper with rubber bands and hit a friend in the eye.

The paper flicking happened in June, and the boy was suspended from school for three days.

A week later Nanny called him to police station, arrested him and questioned for four hours before charging him on 20 July.

The injured boy suffered swelling and bruising to the eye and experienced some bleeding, the CPS said. That of course is highly unfortunate. However, accidents do happen and boys will flick bits of paper at each other...in my day we had "spud guns" which fired pieces of potato using compressed air.

In a statement on the case the CPS said:

"The CPS brought the initial charge

because we were informed that the boy

had lost sight in one eye.

There also appeared to be an

intention to cause harm.

When the medical evidence confirmed that

there was no permanent damage to the eye,

the charge was downgraded to assault.

After further review a decision was taken

to discontinue the case as being not in

the public interest in view of the boys'

ages and the effect of a court case on them."

The boy's solicitor Richard Conley accused the police and CPS of showing a "complete loss of perspective" on the case.

Quote:

"Sadly, this is an increasingly common story

where the pressure to be seen to be taking

action results in a blinkered approach.

As well as the financial costs,

the greater cost is the loss of confidence

in and respect for the police and the

Courts that these cases cause."

The 12 year old who fired the paper, suffers from mild epilepsy, and had three "significant seizures" and required hospital treatment due to stress, his mother said.

She said:

"He was incredibly upset as

he didn't mean to hurt him,

it was a game and they were

flicking paper at each other and laughing."

Like it or not, boys do stupid things like this all the time. On the assumption that genuine remorse was shown, and that the other boy accepted that it was an accident, the actions of the police and CPS are worthy of the "Prats of The Week" Award.

However, if anyone has greater insight into this story, I would be happy to have them posted in the comments box.