February 7, 2008
As the nation braces itself for the official government guidelines on how to keep trim and stop eating all those cakes – and claim government cash for doing so – the nation's workforce was slightly demotivated earlier this week by the news that some harmless tossers had been banned from spilling their loads on the streets of a North Yorkshire city.
For it seemed the annual pancake race - a deep and meaningful motivational tool for local businesses and a good laugh for local school boys - that usually takes place in the pocket-sized city of Ripon was banned on the grounds of 'health and safety'.
Rabid reports in some sections of the press, decried the ending of '600 years of tradition' - despite the fact the event was only revived in 1998 - and the 'tangle of red tape' that had forced organisers to cancel the event.
Now, Yours Truly is not averse to throwing something up in the air and hoping something will stick, but choir boys being banned from running a few yards tossing sloppy egg-based products in the air? It seems a bit eggstreme to say the least.
Not having been a fan of the pancake since a pushy Canadian (woman) with too much facial hair and a big jar of maple syrup came to stay at Chez Guru in the 1970s, Yours Truly can understand why health and safety might want to ban anything associated with the flat foodstuff.
But when he read in the Daily Mail that the, allegedly 'Very Rev' Dean of Ripon Cathedral, Mr Keith Jukes, had said: "We have looked at this and there are a number of reasons it won't take place and a big reason sadly this year is health and safety", it set his bullshit detector a-ringing.
Having organised a few 'risky' situationist occurences in his time, and also not being a fan of disorganised organised religion, Guru feels compelled to ask why a 'man of God' would decide to... um... stretch the truth about the reasons behind his - or the 'organisers' - inability to organise a proverbial pancake race in a small provincial city.
Of course, they do say that God moves in mysterious ways - and given a pancake and a cobbled street to contend with, who could blame him. But fibbing about a pancake race? What would the deity think about that?
The game was given away by councillor Bernard Bateman, who inadvertently revealed the real reason behind the race not taking place, when he told the Daily Mail: "Organisers would have faced a charge for road closures, policing and St John Ambulance first aid cover for the first time."
Hmmm. Cash be the real reason then. That and not enough volunteers.
And to confirm the ineptitude of the 'organisers' the chair of the health and safety commission gave her eminently sensible, and clearly true response - no doubt having weighed up the considerable risk of potentially having to face God's wrath by doing so. (At this point, Guru would like to make it clear that he has not searched the Bible for references to pancake tossing, but he is sure it will be in there somewhere.)
Guru suggests that for next year's event the disorganised dean finds a different route for the tossers - like up the aisle of the whacking great cathedral lurking right there in the heart of the city.
A man of God peddling nonsense? Whatever next? Soon someone will be telling us that Scientology is not a dangerous cult.
