Media hyperventilation is normally confined to stories about health (bird flu, MMR, Sars, BSE), but it’s good to see that the world of fantasy has now intruded into the, err, world of fantasy that is the tabloid press.
The latest thing to have whipped the Daily Mail and co into a frenzy of righteousness and hysteria is the humble sausage.
Apparently, the uppity trading standards bods in the Welsh council of Powys have had a potentially job-threatening impact on sales of porkers by insisting that ‘Dragon Sausages’ be renamed so as not to confuse the general public, who might have had high expectations of the ingredients. That dragons do not exist failed to deter the council jobsworths, as did the fact that ‘dragon’ was not listed on the ingredients panel.
The outraged sausage factory supremo couldn’t believe the council nobby no-mates would try to deprive him of all his Tolkein-obsessed customers, who actually believe in the firesome, winged cave-dwellers. Luckily, the quick-thinking banger-maker came up with the pithy and eminently sensible label ‘Dragon Sausages PORK’.
Do the trading standards officials of Powys actually do any work worth the name? If not, perhaps each official should be forced to wear a T-shirt emblazoned with the words ‘trading standards WASTE OF SPACE’.
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