In a similar vein to the Walking Helmets article in the
BMJ(?) but even more daft^H^H^H^H vital.
Pursuant to Section 14.4.5, subsection 12.5, paragraph 14c,
held within the blah blah waffle waffle safety of children
act waffle, I hereby declare my intent to present to the
house a number of child safety initiatives which will be
effective in promoting th welfare of children in the UK.
1) Children shall be banned from taking physical exercise
at school since excessive exercise will make the obese
children have heart attacks.
2) Children playing or walking near water will be required
to be wearing life jackets at all times. This includes
circumstances when children are in a private garden
which contains a fish pond. Please note also that it
will apply when taking a bath or a shower (see 3).
3) Due to the risk of children slipping in the shower, they
will be required to sit down (this is sometimes known as
"having a bath"😉, and shall also be wearing shower-
helmets. Unfortunately they will be unable to wash their
hair since I intend to ban ventilation holes in the
helmets due to the risk of scalp scalds (see 4).
4) Children shall no longer be able to shower in hot water.
Shower supplies must be cold water only, and it shall be
illegal to install a water heater in series with the
water supply (also known as a "power shower"😉.
5) Children using sharp implementrs such as knives, craft
blades, scissors, compasses (compi?), pencils and
fountain pens will be required to wear protective
gloves. Due to the unfortunate effect of now being
unable to write by hand, all children will be forced to
use computers for all alpha-numeric based communication.
Parents who at home, allow their children to engage in
alpha-numeric communication without buying them a
computer will be subject to prosecution.
5a) It is understood that the banning of knives will have a
serious impact on children wishing to eat school meals. It
will therefore be necessary to ban all such foods requiring
the use of canteen cutlery. Suitable foods will be items
such as beefburgers. See also (12).
6) Children will no longer be allowed to climb stairs
due to the risk of gravitational accident. Parents
must either relocate to bungalows (government
ministers affected by this will be entitled to a
relocation allowance), reorganise their homes so that
children no longer need to climb stairs, or install a
stairlift (see 7).
7) I intend to make it illegal for children to use
stairlifts (including enclosed elevators) unless they
are wearing a suitabale helmet.
8) Children under the age of 16 may not cross the road
unsupervised. Walking helmets will be compulsary. Roads
which are of a width greater than 10m, roads which are a
designated bus route, and all roads which allow cars to
travel on them will be completely out of bounds for
child pedestrians. Children wishing to cross such a road
must do so in the safety of a motor vehicle (this is
sometimes know as "doing a three-point-turn).
9) Children wishing to read books must do so for only 10
minutes a week in order to prevent eye-strain. Books
will be replaced by the much preferred television, which
due to the increased distance of viewing, will reduce in
much lower eye-strain injuries.
10) Parents who wish to allow their children to play in
their own gardens must first of all have their
premises inspected by Child Recreation Analysis
Personnel. Dangerous devices such as those relying on
a fulcrum or simple harmonic motion for pleasure will
be banned. Gravity-challenge frames will be subject to
a maximum height of 0.5m
11) All ball games will be banned due to the risk of head
injury from an air-filled sphere. The preferrable
computer simulation will be deemed a safer alternative.
12) Vegetables will be banned since they grow in the ground
and are obviously dirty.
Final note: I understand that the above meausres may seem
over the top. But we have to think of the children. As a
financial assistance to the above measures, all parents will
be issued with 2 rolls of cotton wool per child per year.
Yours sincerely, Eric Martlew.
--
Young Musician of the Year 2004 was a fiddle