Monday 21 March 2011

Jelly Crazies

Sigh. Sometimes, the hyper-miserable nature of those whose focus is solely on pristine health - to the exclusion of even meagre pleasures - surprises even a hardened righteous-watcher like me.

The little Puddlecotes, since first entering the national child indoctrination programme school, have customarily celebrated classmates' birthdays with treats provided by the birthday boy/girl. Nothing special, just a small token to lift that particular day above the mundane.

A regular favourite has always been mini bags of Haribo jelly bears, starmix, or cola bottles. At just 10p a bag, the class is covered for the small outlay of £2-£3 to the parent - well worth it for the smiles which come with the giving and receiving of them.

Unfortunately, at the boy's school, they've just been banned. As have other regulars such as homemade cakes and snack size chocolate bars.

The Haribo bags weigh just 16g and probably contain about 10 tiny jelly sweets at an estimate, enough to keep a kid chewing for about 3 minutes at most. The 68 calories Google tells me they contain is probably run off between the school gates and the car, or part-walk/part-rampage home.

The school have, however, suggested alternatives. The kids could instead bring in bouncy balls as gifts, they say, or stretchy plastic snakes "which only cost around 50p", as his teacher put it. How very helpful, eh?

It's his birthday next month, so I asked him what he was going to do when that day comes around? "I don't think I'll bother", he glumly replied.

I think he's learned something valuable about the health crazies today.


16 comments:

Kryten 2X4B 523P said...

or alternatively, do it anyway and tell the school to feck off.

Anonymous said...

Rotten filthy kill-joys, the whole bloody lot of them.

Feck the system that won't even allow kids to enjoy candy or a hamburger.

And also feck the system that won't allow adults to enjoy a fag in peace or accompanied by an alcoholic beverage.

Poor kid, don't blame him for feeling so down, thanks to the nitwits running the Soviet indoctrination camps these days posing as schools.

JuliaM said...

Oh, FFS...!

I agree with Kryten, just do it outside the school gates. What can they do?

Ian R Thorpe said...

Be fair Dick, the politically correct brigade are giving us alternatives. On Saturday 26 March we can all switch off lights and appliences that cause emissions for 60 minutes to celebrate Earth Hour. It stats at 8:30pm so you can sit in the dark down at the pub, trying to make your pint last until the ellectric pumps get switched back on.
I have not yet been able to ascertain if the big switch off includes things like life support machines.
But hey, what a jolly time we can all have, not having fun. And if we are lucky Saint Bono, one of the patrons of Earth Hour will bestow his blessing on us.

Lysistrata said...

Oh ffs. It's crazy! Most kids need calories to grow. A few are fat. A few are rake thin. Most are kind of...average. As they always were.

All of them love a few sweeties. WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?

(I once hand-fed a STARVING toddler of vegan parents at a party. With little pieces of chicken, and smears of potted meat, and in the end with tiny pieces of delicious chocolate cake. It was my social duty as a good universal mother. The tiny child wolfed the food down, following me around all evening and opening her mouth for more like a little bird. I could see her cheeks grow pinker, and her energy levels grow, by the minute.)

What can I say? *sigh*

Gawain Towler said...

Lysistrata, You are bad

Word Verification

eenbred

Dick Puddlecote said...

Kryten: Like it. Mentioned an illicit distribution of Haribo outside the school gates to him earlier and he loved the idea.

That's my boy! ;)

Dick Puddlecote said...

Ian: March 26th is looking like a big day in the lefty calendar, the public sector unions have had it pencilled in for London marches for months now. I heard the BBC are working in shifts to cover it to their satisfaction.

Lysistrata: Naughty ... (but nice) ;)

nisakiman said...

Thank heavens my kids are all adult now. I just know that if I had young children at school now the social services would be clamouring to remove them to foster homes.

What is it with these people? Have they no understanding at all?

WTF?

I despair...

Anonymous said...

Is there a website which explains which appliances cause most emissions so I can put them all on full blast that day?

Dick - send in your son with a huge, gooey cake saying that it was made by a group of disabled people/disadvanged young people/senior citizens with no family - as part of a therapy initiative... just a thought.

Jay

SadButMadLad said...

@Ian R Thorpe, and what's the betting that their website is still running during earth hour?

Mark Wadsworth said...

Outside school gates is the way forward. Preferably after school so that they don't get confiscated.

Dick the Prick said...

Lysistrata - good work, you know it makes sense. Good grief, that kid sounds like Charlie Sheen after a week long bender ( come on, we've all done dodgy fridge missions after a particularly hard session - I woke up on Saturday morning to hurl an undercooked chicken curry in the bin; thought it was dodgy when munching but....)

Bill Sticker said...

The people you describe seem to live in a crazy 'Alice through the looking glass world' where imagined or minimal risk must always be met by a robust response.

The kind of people who deny their kids MMR, ignoring the far worse evil of Rubella Syndrome in their grandchildren. Those who want to shut down power stations because they 'pollute', only to have people freezing to death because the power from their beloved Wind Turbines is too expensive for many. The ones who guzzle Potassium Iodide over a minor radiation leak (half a CT scans worth) almost half a world away? Then get sick with vomiting, dizziness and other electrolyte balance disorders?

That the sort of person we're talking about here?

BTS said...

If you're going to be hanging around the school gates offering sweets to passing children anyway, would you like to borrow my trenchcoat?

BTS said...

You'll have to get your own puppy though..