Perhaps this is indicative of the real difference between the US and the UK. In this country, the prime reason to go to a pancake race is for the accidents. The lucky spectator has the opportunity to snatch a flying pancake, or even a loose shoe. Hopefully with a foot still in it.

"I caught a head!! Awww... ithis one's already been scooped out." --Cletus the slack-jawed yokel

RK Jones

Won't sombody PLEASE think about the children??

And I'm sorry, but if the Left can't come up with a way to blame this on George Bush or the Neo-Cons (wink-wink), they are losing their touch.

And I saw over on Melanie Phillips's diary that children are going to have to take classes in religion which will force them to confront their beliefs. In other words, the schools are going to undo the "indoctrination" that has been perpetrated by their parents. [Why do I get the feeling that Muslim kids won't be obliged to attend this course? Am I just being mean?]

I am astounded that the nationalisation of children has been so little commented on. Sex education and religious education are no longer matters within the family, which is so frightening I'm at a loss for words. Children already have "the right" to have abortions without their parents being consulted, and are already being instructed in sex in intricate detail (you never know; Traci may want to have a career as a pole dancer once she reaches 14) so they can make "informed choices".

The government is deciding what they should eat, as is de rigueur in a command economy - although I doubt that you will find this rule in China.

The nationalisation of children in this country is well underway. They are already having the worthless credentials du jour being forced on them so everyone's a winner and there is no preparation for real life - each year, a whole new educational infrastructure! - although I'm certain the Labour government also has a cure for real life that it will let us know about all in good time. Competitive sports exist only in non-state schools, and children are not allowed the innocent pleasure and excitement of competing in a pancake race.

As always, the Americans have an apt phrase for it, although it was originally applied closer to home: whatta way to run a railroad!

We'll reach a time in which recess will be deemed to risky and anyone without insurance will not be able to attend school. Don't you just love the insurance industry.

Media Watch 2004

Media Watch 2004 - You are w-a-a-a-y off. The insurance industry doesn't have the power to subvert the educational system of an entire country. This is about the tentacles of state control now being bold enough to reach out into the family.

Ah, good.
We have avoided the Great Pancake Disaster of 2004, so chillingly predicted by Nostradamus.

"...and in the year 2004, Okeham shalt be destroyed, by a flight of pancakes coming from the east."

WMD, I tell you.

John F - V good! - but it didn't rhyme! Nostradamus has to rhyme! Must do better ...

25 marshalls. Good grief, that's only one marshall every three yards. Applying the precautionary principle, we ought to triple that number to properly ensure safety. Ideally, there should be a one-to-one ratio of marshalls to spectators.

I suppose parents couldn't reasonably be expected to be effective marshalls. It's not like they have any common sense or concern for the welfare of their children and other parents. Furthermore, they are untrained and probably can't afford yellow plastic waistcoats, together with other essential safety equipment.

Who needs insurance or marshalls?, isn't that Fascist, Polly Toynbee pushing the idea that the State is supreme and should not be sued under any circumstance, including the negligence of it's 'employees'.

She cites negligence claims on the NHS, but schools are also part of the State system, and I assume that they would also be exempt.

Talk about being over-regulated!!!.....

What's the experience modifier for waffles? French toast? Let's not even talk about cheese danish...

Actually, this isn't due so much to the insurance companies, but the personal-injury lawyers that force the insurance companies to be ridiculously anal.

How much longer will it be before someone sues Samizdata for "emotional damage" because of all the handgun images, for example?

No, toolkien, you can't make a waffle in a frying pan while running. It's just eggs, flour, water and all that crêpe.

Perhaps the Samizdatans resident in the UK should put together their own pancake sprint for the unlucky children. It might get favorable (or at least sardonic) press. Something on the order of the toy-gun-for-tots thing the New York LP did last year.

RK Jones

Why do I get the feeling that the pancake tossers of Okehampton aren't the tossers we should be seeking to regulate and control?

And here I thought it was because someone might lose.

Horrors.

What kind of England insists of 25 pancake marshalls but balks at the prospect of 1 sky marshall?

Dr Atkins had the answer - "Pancakes are forbidden!"
Then he skidded in the street on a discarded waffle from a deli in New York, cracked his head and later died, we are told, from being 6 stones overweight as a result of excessive consumption of pancakes. His last words are reported to have been, "It's a funny old world ... Margaret!"

Verity:

In general an education that exposes children to ideas and information they don't get at home seems like a good thing. Otherwise, why send them to school at all? Ditto (if we need a tenuous link to the original post) mild risks such as games and races.

However, I'm with you one the nationalisation of children via education. If you want to see it in its most pernicious form, look at this.

The latest proposed "reforms" to examinations also betray an official desire to replace tests of knowledge and skill, with official monitoring and recording of one's whole life controlled through schools and the DoE rather than separate examination bodies. In a classic example of newspeak thoughttheft New Labour's "baccalaureat" will be just about as unlike the bac as it is possible to be.

I'm with Fred. The marshalls aren't there to ensure the physical safety of the contestants and the spectators - they are to ensure the equality of outcome. For instance, if the big strapping 8 year old is 12 yards in front after 4 seconds, where do you think the one-legged hump-backed dwarf is going to be? Well I'll tell you!! He'll be sobbing on the start line, that's where!!

The Marshalls are there to swing a large steel pole into the shins of the front runners whilst in full flight, ensuring that the one-legged hump-backed dwarfs can catch up.

Can you imagine the compensation that the insurance would have to pay out to the trauma victims of such a race, i.e. those who didn't win? No wonder they want a minumum of 25 "Equality Marshalls", to ensure that those from disadvantaged backgrounds don't get vicitimised.

Everyone can relax. According to the highly dependable and unbiased BBC, the insurance premium has been lowered from £280 to £60. No need for 35 marshalls as they're going to hold it in a pedestrianised area. The children are actually going to be allowed to compete with one another.

And it's not exactly a traditional event. It's only been going since 1997. Not like the traditional pancake run at Olney which has been going on for centuries.

We can all breathe easier. And Nostradamus was wrong yet again!

Pancake race? Never heard of such a thing. But at my former elementary school, which was one of the most bureaucratic, such a race would never happen because it would be deemed "dangerous". Do the children hurl pancakes while running? Sounds interesting.
And Sex Ed is coming back--its being offered as an elective during "trip week". Of course I'm not taking it. [I hope to take driver's ed].

I live in hope that British school authorities will one day discover that buying ever more computers for schools without teaching the children to touch-type is "dangerous" (because of RSI). Then at least the children would learn one useful skill there.

errrr... all you peeps ranting on about the state, this is a *private enterprise* which was preventing the race. As far as I know, the gov't aren't responsible for dictating insurance premiums. It's just our ridiculous risk-averse society as a whole; nowt to do with 'social marxists' or whoever the current bogeymen are.

As for this "replacing a-levels is just a way for the state to control people's lives"... maybe it's also a way to broaden the ridiculously narrow & overspecialised secondary education English kids get at the moment (narrowing down to 3 subjects at 16??? ridiculous).

On insurance company risk-aversion and associated idiocy, A_t is absolutely right.

On replacing A-levels, it's the "also" that worries me. I'm all for broadening English education--though I'd like it deeper too. However I'd like education to serve only educational goals: not those of the corporate state. The "also" is a lassoo by which the latter controls the former. Social control will win out if they are yolked together.

Unfortunately the government is not happy just to re-invent the wheel. Can anyone say for certain when in the last 20-years the so-called "S-level" special papers (formerly used for discriminating between A-grade A-levels) disappeared?