Thursday
(0)Nulabour MP and blogger Tom Watson, offers this inspirational Yuletide message to his readers:
Christmas is a dangerous time of the year. Tree lights send 350 of us to hospital each year. 1000 people suffer trimmings damage. 17 people died through christmas candle disaster. This, before you even get in the kitchen.
Gott in Himmel! Even during the festive season, Nulabour acolytes just cannot rein in, even temporarily, their neurotic impulse to lecture, hector and nanny. Bring back Scrooge. By comparison that crotchety old miser was a bundle of laughs.
It's Christmas. Revel. Have fun. Go crazy. Get drunk. Eat lots. Ride a motorbike. Have sex (while riding the motorbike). Go bungee jumping, deep-sea diving, shooting, hunting, caving, mountaineering and anything else you desire to give yourself a rush of heady adrenalin. Party on down, dudes and celebrate your lives.
Sex has a higher death and injury rate than Christmas, when you consider STDs and the hazards of love triangles and such. You'll never see the doomsayers wring their hands over that pastime.
Posted by Alan K. Henderson at December 25, 2003 04:38 AM
Oh My God. I have eaten far, far too much...
*cartman*
nooo moreee pieeeee
*/cartman*
Posted by Scott Wickstein at December 25, 2003 08:31 AM
Well, i am sharpening my ice-axes whilest waiting for my Christmas diner, now all i need is some ice!!
Merry Christmas
Posted by Ian at December 25, 2003 11:50 AM
The nanny state going madder. 350 affected by christmas lights? Out of a population of 60 millions? Some people really don't know how to get things in perspective and will write any old crap just to get in print. What a miserable bunch of party-poopers. Pass another mince pie...I've only had eight so far...with double cream. What a lovely day.
Posted by Nick Timms at December 25, 2003 12:04 PM
I'll be smoking a rather nice, and bloody expensive, cigar today. It's a Cuban called Trinidad and apparently until quite recently made exclusively for Castro to use for diplomatic purposes.
BTW does anyone know the thinking behind promoting Cuban cigars as Havana cigars?
Posted by Bernie Greene at December 25, 2003 12:27 PM
Everything is dangerous is someone's hands. There is not depth to which human stupidity won't reach. After all there are warnings on Windex/Windowlean not to use them on contacts because some idiot actually did it. I think some government nanny types want all people to be paranoid about everything, all the time.
Posted by Andrew Ian Dodge at December 25, 2003 03:00 PM
I don't go in for physical pleasure, myself. I hate stuffing my face with food (I'm fat enough already!), I don't drink spirits or take any other drugs, & I haven't had sex for over 12 years. I think that it's time that libertarians / minarchist-classical-liberals abandoned the idea that the forces of right & left are the anti-pleasure brigade. They're the anti-freedom brigade, & freedom includes the freedom to be celibate, teetotal, etc.
Posted by Charles P at December 25, 2003 08:41 PM
The 350 damaged by tree lights are probably the parents of those idiots whose actions prompt do-gooders to ban fireworks for the Fourth of July.
Posted by B. Durbin at December 25, 2003 10:22 PM
Bernie Greene: I have a feeling that I have smoked that very cigar in a Cigar club in Beverly Hills a couple of months ago. A generous friend took me to the club and his even more generous friend whom we met there offered me one of those cigars as he just returned from Cuba. It was a truly amazing experience (both the cigar and the place).
The person who might know the answer to your question about Havana cigars is Brian Linse of Ain't No Bad Dude who is renowed for his cigar-smoking prowess...
Posted by Adriana Cronin at December 26, 2003 09:17 PM
Did he mention how many die each Xmas due to the state of the NHS?
Posted by Cobden Bright at December 26, 2003 09:37 PM
"After all there are warnings on Windex/Windowlean not to use them on contacts because some idiot actually did it."
That's not as bad as the writing on packets of photocopier toner, warning you not to eat the contents.
Posted by Tim Newman at December 27, 2003 10:03 AM
Mr Carr Sir,
I sincerely hope you had a safe Christmas and that the George Formby grill did not casue injury.
Posted by tom at December 29, 2003 10:40 AM
We've got the same sort of thing on this side of the Atlantic as well. Check out this story from the December 27th edition of the Washington Post. Note the lack of numbers on how dangerous this practice is.
Posted by Chuck Divine at December 29, 2003 05:05 PM
