24 types of authoritarian

I don’t know whether to laugh or open a vein….

Click image to expand.

How many people were electrocuted last year?

Well, in 2002, the last year that RoSPA compiled statistics, 8,364 people suffered domestic electrical and radiation accidents in the UK.

The fact that electricity is manifestly more dangerous than mephedrone hasn’t stopped politicians of all parties climbing enthusiastically aboard the moral panic bandwagon over the deaths, “possibly” and “partly” caused by the drug, of two (I’ll repeat that, two) Scunthorpe teenagers on Monday.

Neither, to my knowledge, has any politician, of any party, called for a ban on electricity.

A nod of achnowledgement to Tory Bear for getting this absolutely right.

I baa therefore I are….reprise

Remember this?

Well, sadly, the redoubtable Andrea Charman has finally thrown in the towel and given up the unequal struggle against a group of flat-earther parents who believe their children should not be taught that meat comes from slaughtered animals.

I know who I’d like to slaughter.

How have I survived until now without these meddling bastards?

Some of you may recall that last winter a girl died in a sledging accident after some enterprising youths had used an old Land Rover roof as a sledge. The girl lost control at 60 mph and smashed into a tree.

In the “something must be done” way of these things, the coroner has now demanded that the slope they were on should be closed to the public.

Oh, for the love of Mike! What is the point?

Believe it or not, people have accidents. Often, it’s because they were doing risky things. Other times it’s just bad luck. Why is it that every time anything like this happens some interfering dolt has to demonstrate his concern, and justify his salary, by treating us all like lobotomised cattle?

And quite how sticking a sign up or getting some asthmatic “enforcement officer” to wheeze his way up to the top of the slope in heavy snow will deter people who are so in love with speed that they’re prepared to take an old car roof up there and slide down, Christ alone knows.