Has the world gone mad - or is it me?
By Peter Smith - 08/05/2008
I agree with most of the points made in your editorial piece (see link below), and would like to offer a slightly different perspective. I have selected a few recent reports - they must be accurate, they were in the Telegraph!
1. A woman prosecuted, and given a £1000 pounds fine (at taxpayers expense) for failing to notice a 20p shortfall in her (prepaid) bus fare.
2.An old lady fined for exhibiting her disabled badge upside-down.
3. Another old lady defined as a 'medium to high risk of causing violence' despite her inability to walk without two sticks for support.
Last week -
4. A mother fined because her child dropped a piece of sausage roll.
5. A man refused a cat as a companion by a rescue centre because he 'lived near a road' - excuse me most people I know live near a road!
Other random observations of a terminally bewildered mind:
6. Criminals refusing to escape jail - like Butlins, but with better health and dental care.
7. Employers have to teach English to recruits and fill in ever more forms for 'statistics' and worse, EU regulations!
8. Blake's 7 is coming back - yippee! - more believable than Cameron/Brown together.
9. Banks - who will pay reparation? What about the taxpayer? Give the directors more bonuses!
10. In one letters column, a qualified accountant claimed to have 'given up' trying to get answers to tax credit questions for a client, after more than 30 calls!
11. A mother takes her 10-year-old shopping instead of school, so that he can obtain a (18 certificate) video game said to promote violence against society and the police.
It seems to me that the world has changed quite a bit from the 50s and 60s which were my formative years. Common sense and helpfulness made regular appearances I think!
Do we now live in one of Stephen Hawkins' dimensions where these qualities have been edited out??
Am I mis-remembering (a la Clinton)?
Am I mad?
Is anyone real!
HELP!
Peter Smith