Where to start?

A few days of silence broken by a roaring avalanche of stupid.

I’ve been trying to think about how I could split these up into separate posts, but sod it, I’m sure some common thread, beyond stupidity, will reveal itself before the end of the post. I make no apologies for sourcing entirely from Nanny Beeb, the tone is so wonderfully patronising.

Right so, exhibit A:

Newly qualified young drivers should be banned from night-time motoring and carrying passengers of a similar age, Cardiff University researchers say.

They said such "graduated driver licensing" for those aged 17-19 could save more than 200 lives and result in 1,700 fewer serious injuries each year.

I didn’t start driving until I was fairly old, I’d certainly left uni before I got my licence.

There is no doubt that young people are much more likely to be involved in an accident than older drivers. But I would submit that it is lazy to attribute this solely to their age. Surely the biggest factor in this statistic is the question of experience?

We already have this crazy rule whereas a learner is barred from driving on a motorway with (in the main) a professional instructor at hand, but once they pass their test, which has no element of motorway driving in it (I’m assuming the theory test does, I never took one) they are free to go and drive on the motorway with no supervision at all. The answer to this is not to say ‘you can’t go on a motorway until you’ve been passed a year’ the answer surely is to make this an element of the learning and testing experience.

Without the experience of driving in the dark, with passengers, on the motorway, towing a trailer or a caravan, any driver is likely to be at increased risk of having a prang when driving in that situation.

Merely bringing in a rule that says ‘no driving in these conditions until you’re twenty‘ will surely only serve to postpone the vulnerability of not having that experience.

Young people can’t be trusted is the message here. More restrictions are the answer, because it looks like you are doing something. Even if that something will actually do nothing to alleviate the problem.

It’s not just on the roads, either:

A study of 10 to 11-year-olds in the area revealed that almost one in five was clinically obese and that more than a third were overweight.

What’s the cause of this then? I’ve transposed the headline and the first paragraph here.

Fast-food outlets could be banned from operating near schools in Medway as part of an effort to cut child obesity.

Right, so it is nothing to do with the wholesaling of school and public playing fields for development, nothing to do with the constant warnings that your children can’t leave the house without being hit by a car, injected with drugs, playing hopscotch on the high speed rail link, buggered by the nonces hanging around the bushes at the end of the street, stabbed, held at knifepoint until mobile phones and MP3 players are handed over or inducted to the Hare Krishnas.  It is certainly nothing to do with the state telling mothers that they’re worthless if they don’t go back to work as soon as the stitches have healed or both sets of parents that it would just be better all round if they let the State bring up their children for them.

These kids are fat, not because of the above, but because there’s a place selling chips near the school. The Righteous have declared this to be the case, therefore it is fact. It is unfortunate that these businesses will have to close, and these people will lose their jobs. It is unfortunate that the people who work in these places are probably poor and just above the poverty line themselves, but despite all the Righteous bleating about helping them, they really couldn’t give a toss. They’re not thinking of you today, they’re thinking of the chiiiiiiiiiildren.

Despite the attempts of successive governments, children are actually very creative problem solvers, especially when it is a problem close to their hearts that needs solving. So when you read;

In 2008 Waltham Forest Council in east London set up a 400m exclusion zone around schools, parks and youth centres to tackle child obesity

I’m willing to bet that the kids were very quick to identify the fried chicken shop that was 405m away from the school gates. It certainly betrays a clarity of thought sadly absent in some of our politicians and civil servants.

And whilst we’re on the subject of fat (have you seen what I’ve done here? God I’m good!):

The British RMT union has criticised the boss of Stena Line for making comments calling British workers "fat" and "tattooed".

Fair enough, it seems only fair, I criticise the RMT on an almost daily basis for being petulant, childlike Communist fantasists. I’ve seen many workers who are British, and many of them are fat. Many of them are tattooed. A good number are both. An equally good number are neither.

Pim de Lange said he was quoted out of context and has apologised.

Oh, Pim. That’s your second mistake there. Never apologise. Those Righteous bastards never do, so why should you?

But Steve Todd, head of maritime at the RMT, has called for a fuller apology.

Naturally.

Mr de Lange's comments appeared in a Dutch newspaper, in which he also said it was hard to find British workers who were young and fit for the job.

It’s all because of those fast-food restaurants near the schools, you see, Pim.

He later said in a statement: "I regret any offence caused and apologise."

But Mr Todd said this did not go far enough.

Not nearly far enough.

"RMT is demanding a full retraction of all the statements he has made and a full apology to all British seafarers for his behaviour," he said. “We are also demanding that he be stripped naked, flogged, dragged on a hurdle through Harwich town centre to the docks, before being keel-hauled on the trip back to Holland. Once there, his remains should be ground into dust, mixed with some petrol in a glass bottle and set alight before being thrown through the window of his house, where his wife and kids will be bound to large objects of furniture, unable to escape the ensuing conflagration.”

I might have made that last bit up.

Bloody RMT, it’s perfectly acceptable for them to make everyone else’s life a misery, but as soon as someone suggests that on occasion it might be an idea for one or two of their members to pass on the odd bacon roll and perhaps be a little more discerning in the subject of body art, it’s the end of the world.

I thought you were supposed to be big roughty-toughty sailors, picking the weevils out of biscuits, pouring hot tar down hatches, drinking huge amounts of rum, all buggers’ grips and golden rivets? Don’t be so fucking precious.