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We have all gone completely nuts!

Vic Barlow
25/ 1/2006

READ this and read it very carefully: If you have recently bought a new set of bathroom scales DO NOT use them without consulting the User's Guide.

Should you do so and find yourself catapulted naked out of the bathroom window you will have no-one but yourself to blame.

I swear to God, a set of scales I bought last week had that warning (not the bit about being catapulted through the window, I made that up) but the scales did carry a warning to read the User's Guide before use.

Just what sort of 'guide' do you need for a set of bathroom scales? Get-on. Get-off. What else is there to say?

Someone very kindly bought me a new mouse pad for Christmas with a built-in calculator and USB hub. It's the size of a dinner plate and sits neatly on the desk alongside my keyboard. Guess what was written on the packaging?

'Dangerous if swallowed.'

What sort of lunatic would swallow a mouse pad?

"You're looking a bit pale today, Pat."

"Yes, I've got a screaming headache."

"Drink this glass of water and swallow your mouse pad. You'll be right as rain in no time."

What has become of us that we need to be chivvied by such moronic advice?

A teacher recently showed me a health and safety questionnaire he was made to complete before taking a team of students to the art gallery. You would have thought it was a polar expedition. It didn't exactly ask how many bears would be encountered or the depth of the ice flow but a more stupidly inappropriate collection of questions would be hard to imagine.

We are becoming a nation of neurotics scared to leave home in case we are struck by a falling flower basket. When we are not terrifying ourselves with imaginary accidents we're inventing life-threatening allergies. God knows how our parents' generation ever survived?

"One-two-three. Right, Corporal, throw that grenade."

"Does it contain nuts, sir?"

"What?"

"Nuts, I'm allergic to nuts."

"Four-five. Course it doesn't contain nuts it's a grenade. Now throw the bloody thing."

"Was it made in a factory that contained nuts?"

"Six -seven. Just throw it."

"I'm not touching it if it contains nuts because."

BANG!

Sometimes you do wonder if we have all gone barking mad.

• THE views expressed on this page are those of Vic Barlow and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Express.