Flabbergasted

I keep thinking that there's just no way for the nanny-state government of England to outdo their breathtakingly stupid policies, but they continually prove me wrong. Well, at least it gives me no shortage of topics for this blog.

Some idiotic government agency over there called the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has required that a theater troupe in Cornwall traipse down to the local police station to register their props because they "count as weapons".

The identified contraband included two plastic cutlasses (a Pirates of the Caribbean children's Halloween costume essential), six wooden swords (those would be long sticks, basically), and the most dangerous of all, of course:



"a toy gun which produces a flag saying 'Bang'."

($2.59 and $3.99, respectively, at a2zcostume.com, if you want to become the next Macbeth.)

In addition, these WMD's must also be locked away when they are not actually being used in a performance. They wouldn't want anyone to get splinters in their hand or a flag in their eye, of course.

"A spokesman for the HSE said: 'We do not want to stop people putting on pantos [pantomime shows] or having fun as long as the risks are sensibly managed.'"

You passed "sensibly" quite some time back, sir.

When are the peasants in Britain finally going to decide that they've had just about enough of this utter nonsense?