Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

*sigh* It’s health, sorry, ‘elf, and safety – plus a bonus Sky oopsy

On the day that the Mail became Littlejohn, using one of his dreary fernetick spellings to emphasise the silliness of people not being allowed to send their kids to school

as part of a general dumbing-down of the Mail front that saw them (hilariously of course, didn't we all piss ourselves with glee?) call Harriet Harman Harriet Harperson a while ago, comes the story of a girl who was killed in a sledging accident. What do people do? Blame H&S! Sorry, 'elf and safety. We must continue to use that astonishingly witty term for it, mustn't we?

Firstly, Sky did a bit of an oopsy by apparently calling the girl who flew through the air to her death a 'high-flying student' - quickly changed, and rightly so. Then come things like this:

Its a sad tragedy, but at the same time they were kids who were having fun initially.
We cant stop children having accidents and surely no-one can be held accountable when it surely was an accident.
The HSE would not have been able to prevent this, you cant wrap people up in cotton wool.
I can remember making various sledges as a child and my uncle improving it so we could get a greater speed........ its part of growing up

and this

I give it 5 minutes before Health & Safety ban sledging in public places

wonderfully smacked down by this:

Dawn, the HSE and indeed us safety professionals wouldn't have even tried to prevent this, because we only deal with Health and Safety At Work! Its sad that people are mentioning Health and Safety at all in commenting on this story.
If you chose to slide down a hill on a car bonnet then you must accept the risk and possible consequences. health and Safety legislation etc will not stop you. You do it a work its a different matter. The 229 people who died at work last year are what we a concerned about, not people doing foolish thngs in their own time.

although I think the 'foolish' line is a bit harsh in the light of a teenager's death, you have to feel a little bit for H&S folk, constantly vilified by idiots and people at the Mail egging them on, imagining that 'elf and safety is some kind of spectral police force that comes around everywhere and stops everything remotely fun from ever happening. It shouldn't be, and it isn't.

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