Close shave at Wimbledon
WIMBLEDON has been and gone. But only now has it emerged how thousands of spectators were saved by the alertness of health and safety officials to the perils of walking uphill on wet grass. A spectator TV viewing station on a slightly raised knoll of ground at Wimbledon was closed this year because of the risk..
The incident tops a list of "bizarre" health and safety rulings – mainly at local government level – released by Britain's Minister of Employment, Chris Grayling, who says the nonsense has to stop.
The other bannings/barrings/refusals of permission (localised and not enforced nationally):
· Dodgem cars bumping into each other.
· Royal Wedding street parties.
· Kite-flying.
· Schoolchildren playing unsupervised on monkey bars.
· Schoolyard football - unless the ball is made of sponge.
· The three-legged race and the sack race at a children's sports day.
Grayling says the health and safety regulations are intended for the workplace but bureaucrats are using them to inhibit people's enjoyments, infringing on their rights.
But should he be hasty? The potato race definitely carries the risk of repetitive stress syndrome. The egg-and-spoon race causes squinting.
I wonder of the Royal Marines ever did resolve their disagreement with health and safety over the need for a hand rail on that part of their assault course where trainee commandos have to slide down a steep cliff-face?
The agony aunts
SOME excerpts from the world of the agony aunt. The syndicated American column Dear Abby was begun in 1956 by Pauline Phillips, who wrote under the pen-name Abigail van Buren. It's still going strong, being written now by her daughter, Jeanne.
Dear Abby has become an institution in America, as much for the questions sent in as for Abigail's advice. Reader Eric Hodgson sends in some examples:
· A couple of women moved in across the hall from me. One is a middle-aged gym teacher and the other is a social worker in her mid-twenties. These two women go everywhere together and I've never seen a man go into or leave their apartment. Do you think they could be Lebanese?
· What can I do about all the sex, nudity, fowl language and violence on my VCR?
· I have a man I can't trust. He cheats so much, I'm not even sure the baby I'm carrying is his.
· I am a 23-year-old liberated woman who has been on the pill for two years. It's getting expensive and I think my boy friend should share half the cost, but I don't know him well enough to discuss money with him.
· I've suspected that my husband has been fooling around, and when confronted with the evidence, he denied everything and said it would never happen again.
· I joined the Navy to see the world. I seen it. Now how do I get out?
· My 40-year-old son has been paying a psychiatrist $50 an hour every week for two and a half years. He must be crazy.
· I was married to Bill for three months and I didn't know he drank until one night he came home sober.
· My mother is mean and short tempered. I think she is going through mental pause.
· You told some woman whose husband had lost all interest in sex to send him to a doctor. Well, my husband lost all interest in sex and he is a doctor. Now what do I do?
Something useful
MEANWHILE, another reader (who shall remain nameless) writes in to say his daughter suggested he do something more useful with his time.
"She suggested I go down to the seniors centre and hang out with the guys. I did this and when I got home last night I told her I had joined a parachute club.
She said: 'Are you nuts? You're almost 70 and you're going to start jumping out of aeroplanes?'
"I showed her I even had a membership card. She said: 'You idiot, where are your glasses? This is membership of a prostitute club, not a parachute club!'
"I'm in trouble again and don't know what to do. I signed up for five jumps a week!"
Sorry, I don't know what to advise. I'm not an agony aunt!
Tailpiece
MY E-MAIL required a password with eight characters. So I chose snowwhiteandthesevendwarves.
Last word
There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.
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