On a considerably lighter note than the previous posting, is this report in the London Telegraph, listing a number of absurd cases of political correctness run amok, along with some other things that are…just VERY different.
As Britain becomes more and more politically correct and its citizens more and more dumbfounded by it all, it’s encouraging to find that we are not alone. Tom Tickell looks back on a year full of pomposity, idiosyncrasy and plain old-fashioned nonsense, here and abroad.
A few samples:
• A market trader in Derby was banned from selling candles – unless they carried a notice warning that they can burn.
Don’t tell OSHA about this!
• A constable who saved the life of a man who was high on drugs by stopping him jumping from a window was reprimanded. PC Amerjit Singh, who had been summoned to a house in Cambridgeshire to prevent the potential suicide, had used “undue force” in holding the man back from killing himself. The man’s father complained.
Did he have insurance on the son?
• Staff at a Norwich school had to fill in risk assessment forms before they could take children out to play in the snow last winter. Children throwing snowballs could do so only if they were 65ft apart. “Risk assessments can keep children safe in snowy weather,” claimed a spokesman for the council.
Saved again by “risk assessment”.
• Officials in the Czech Republic started a campaign to cut down government bureaucracy and waste by closing down the country’s General Directorate of the Civil Service. The directorate had itself been set up to find ways of cutting back on waste and red tape.
WOW! The Chief is impressed. They actually managed to abolish a government agency. Maybe we could get a Czech advisory team over here.
There are a lot more listed too. Check it out for a good chuckle or two.