I'm astonished to read of a Health & Safety ruling in England.
Retired deputy headteacher John Freeman had enjoyed a £70-a-head meal at the Macdonald Portal Golf and Spa Hotel, in Tarporley, Cheshire, to celebrate New Year's Eve when he realised he had a piece of rib-eye steak stuck in his molars.
But when he called over the waiter to ask for assistance, Mr Freeman was astonished by his response.
'The waiter apologised but said he was not allowed to give me a toothpick for health and safety reasons,' Mr Freeman, 63, said.
'I asked him if he was joking, but he said it wasn't April 1 and that there weren't any in the hotel.
'I told him it was nonsense and asked to speak to the manager to request an explanation – indicating, at the same time, that there were 14 very dangerous metal knives and forks on my table that had been unsupervised for at least two hours.
'She took the point and agreed the situation was ludicrous at best, but assured me there had been a directive from head office not to provide toothpicks because they are potentially dangerous.'
. . .
Dentist Ray McNamara said there was nothing more 'maddening' than having a piece of food stuck in your teeth.
He said: 'This doesn’t surprise me in this health and safety age. I suppose they are worried about people flicking their crowns out or injuring themselves and then blaming the hotel.
'My suggestion would be for restaurants to have a roll of dental floss available for people to use – I don’t think you can injure yourself with floss.'
Meanwhile, a seaside resort has cancelled its annual fun day after children were banned from riding in the donkey derby because of health and safety fears.
Organisers were forced to stop children riding the animals because they were worried they could get sued if one of them had an accident.
There's more at the link.
Ye Gods and little fishes! What next? No toilet paper in the restroom, in case it gets accidentally unrolled, and you trip over it and hurt yourself? I was tempted to award the Health & Safety clowns a 'Doofus Of The Day' award for this, but it doesn't really apply, because they actually believe this nonsense - and they're going to go right on inflicting it on the rest of us.
Sheesh!
Peter
Maybe an angry mob could convince the health and safety people that it would be unsafe to return to work ever again.
ReplyDeleteIf pigs could fly, some swine farmer would likely get a ticket from these idiots for letting it happen.
w-v: lospouti Don't drink from the lo spouti, you could get a back injury when you stand up straight again.
Even worse than the article itself were some of the comments. Ami, of Lewes, wrote: "'Health and Safety' measures are there to ensure that we are all healthy and safe, how can anyone reasonably disagree with them?"
ReplyDeleteIndicative of the fact that many in the Mother country have drunk deep from the Kool-Aid and no longer know what "reasonable" is.
This is funny, in a twisted sort of way. Recall the Taliban and their bans on music, kite flying, etc? And the Saudi religous police? These English safety freaks are ,in an odd way, cut from the exact same cloth as the "committee to prevent vice and encourage virtue" or whatever name they go by these days. Give them a turban and ship them out out, I am quite sure they will do fine in Somalia.
ReplyDelete