Health & Safety Executive officials have blasted music promoter Live Nation for using them as an excuse for shutting down Bruce Springsteen at Hyde Park on Saturday. Chiefs fear they have become a catch-all excuse for any ruling that's a bit rubbish. Far from insisting the show end at 10.30pm, the HSE said that sometimes it stays up 'til nearly midnight and once, as a teenager, smoked a menthol cigarette, though it didn't inhale.
"We're actually pretty crazy guys," said an insider. "Have I got a traffic cone in my living room? Don't even go there!"
The HSE's deputy chief executive, Kevin Myers, was actually at the gig and he too was cross at its premature end. He was the one in the mosh pit with the hard hat and goggles.
Even The Daily Slap's granny is still up at 10.30 on a Saturday night. Admittedly she's shuffling towards her room by then with a bottle of brandy and 50 Shades Of Grey on her Kindle Touch, but she's awake. And will be for hours.
The HSE is so fed up with being called killjoys they set up their own Myth Busters Challenge Panel and produced a Myth Of The Month. We thought Myth Of The Month was a page 3 girl with a speech impediment but apparently not. It covered falsehoods like Punch & Judy shows requiring a health and safety assessment. They don’t. If you want to take your child to a puppet show in which a criminal beats his wife with a truncheon and feeds their baby to a sausage machine, it's not a health and safety issue. It's a madness issue.
Inevitably and sadly, it's HSE employees that like to take the most risks at home as they battle depression and the finger-pointing of Joe Public: Lifting heavy objects without bending their knees, toying with matches and licking asbestos fire-proofing. They know it's wrong. That's why they do it. Danger is their secret high.
"We're actually pretty crazy guys," said an insider. "Have I got a traffic cone in my living room? Don't even go there!"
The HSE's deputy chief executive, Kevin Myers, was actually at the gig and he too was cross at its premature end. He was the one in the mosh pit with the hard hat and goggles.
Even The Daily Slap's granny is still up at 10.30 on a Saturday night. Admittedly she's shuffling towards her room by then with a bottle of brandy and 50 Shades Of Grey on her Kindle Touch, but she's awake. And will be for hours.
The HSE is so fed up with being called killjoys they set up their own Myth Busters Challenge Panel and produced a Myth Of The Month. We thought Myth Of The Month was a page 3 girl with a speech impediment but apparently not. It covered falsehoods like Punch & Judy shows requiring a health and safety assessment. They don’t. If you want to take your child to a puppet show in which a criminal beats his wife with a truncheon and feeds their baby to a sausage machine, it's not a health and safety issue. It's a madness issue.
Inevitably and sadly, it's HSE employees that like to take the most risks at home as they battle depression and the finger-pointing of Joe Public: Lifting heavy objects without bending their knees, toying with matches and licking asbestos fire-proofing. They know it's wrong. That's why they do it. Danger is their secret high.
Copyright : Vince Raison/Comedy Central UK