Chris Hansen’s blog

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I was reading an interview in the Grauniad this morning with the head of the Health and Safety Executive. There has been a lot of grumbling among members of the new coalition Government and some members of the general booboisie about intrusive rules purporting to emanate from the HSE which, for example, forbid schoolchildren from playing conkers in school unless the children wear goggles (conkers is a peculiarly British children’s pastime which involves attaching horse chestnuts to a string and clinking them together in the hope that your opponent’s conker will shatter). There is no HSE advice on conker playing in particular, although apparently several children each year are injured by flying pieces of horse-chestnut shell.

In any case, the quotation in the Grauniad is as follows:

Not surprisingly, it bothers (Judith) Hackitt that myths about the HSE continue to be bandied about as though they really happened. For the record, the HSE doesn’t want to ban school trips, or make science lessons dull. “I’m a chemist,” she says, “I know that setting hands on fire, for instance, can be perfectly safe if done properly.”

Quite.

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