Danger Around Every Sofa
As kids we used to spend hours up trees, wade through rivers, climb cliffs, ride soapbox carts without brakes, play with catapults, slide down the stairs on tin trays and use playground equipment for everything other than the purpose for which they were made. These were thrilling, exciting and slightly scary activities that got your adrenalin flowing, made our lives fun and taught us our physical limits.
Now we are getting so risk adverse its even been suggested the health and safety inspectors will be given powers to enter our houses to ensure our knives are blunt, our baths cannot hold more than half an inch of water, our beer and wine is kept under lock and key, our house plants and flowers are pollen free and we men put down the toilet seat after a number one.
I’m sure the pedants who work for the HSE could find a multitude of risks and dangers in every home in the land, including their own. Life is a risk and we must all learn to live with those risks. Several kids at my school had their lives cut short because of their own misfortunes, its very sad but it happens. Turning our homes into padded cells, regulating every interaction with other people and seeking an utopian idea of safety will leave us frustrated, lonely and dead from boredom.
