Tuesday, March 25, 2008

• It is illegal to enter the Houses of Parliament wearing a suit of armour.

  Currently Listening Ma Fleur By The Cinematic Orchestra see related

   

  I'm sat here chewing my blue pen, trying to figure how best to write. It does seem I've been a little negligient of this account for quite sometime. I could fill you in with a million and one exciting stories, far-flung tales and adventures as to my disappearance, and the reasons would be all be quite delightful, but they would also have been made up figments of my imagination. So instead i'm left scratching my head with my blue pen as to why exactly I've left it so long. Rather than waxing lyrical, and more so a difficulty of justifying my xanga absence, its probably best to start as if I never left. Which means that from this point forward of this post you have to pretend you didn't see this start to todays entry, and that you've come to view my updates from yesterday. Capisce?

  Right here it goes ...

  One thing I could never quite get to grips with when I was employed in bars was an English law that affected me in the workplace; it is illegal to serve someone who is drunk. I've only ever had one collegue who used it as if he was a totaliterian ruler, and genrually its not widely enforced.

  Its notion and practice seems a little contradictory. In English culture its kind of taken as a given if you are going out for a "drink or two" that in actual fact you'll probably not be seen untill the following morning, and you'll wake up wondering why your friend passed out on the sofa has a traffic gone on his head, how you could have lost a shoe during the course of the night, and who exactly is the young lady/man sleeping next you. 

  I can't quite imagine the scene in an English nightclub if people were not allowed to be drunk on the premises as the law states. It would probably turn all 'school-disco-esque', with the hyperactive girls dancing around in the middle, and a few guys looking round awkwardly at the side, not sure if they should join in, or send their mate over to tell some lucky-girl "my friend fancies you", and then there is the selection of light snacks at the back of the room which you don't want too touch as you just saw that guy with the big-sweaty hands finger them all.

  Or maybe I'm just being cynical, and it's because I don't know better, and I should have more faith in this nations young generation. Maybe I just don't like the thought of such a law ringing true; after all it would effectively mean I couldn't stumble in to do my night shift at work after drinking with friends in the bar round the corner all afternoon. 

  So I got thinking about any other slightly circumspect British laws, and none seemed to cross my mind, and ended up doing a little research on the subject. It seems that over the course of our history so much jurisdiction has been passed that modern Goverment does not have enough time and resources to go through repealing it all. Here are a few of my favourites:

  • In the city of York, it is legal to murder a Scotsman within the ancient city walls, but only if he is carrying a bow and arrow.
  • It is illegal for a woman to be topless in Liverpool except as a clerk in a tropical fish store
  • Any person found breaking a boiled egg at the sharp end will be sentenced to 24 hours in the village stocks (enacted by Edward VI).
  • It is illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament.
  • It is an act of treason to place a postage stamp bearing the British monarch upside down.
  • In Lancashire, no person is permitted after being asked to stop by a constable on the seashore to incite a dog to bark.
  • It is illegal to enter the Houses of Parliament wearing a suit of armour
  • In the Royal Air Force you may grow a moustache but are not allowed to clip it, the moustache must grow wild.

  But it seems such folly doesn't just exist in my part of the world. Indeed your not safe from silly laws in most places. Now, I don't want my Texan friend getting in trouble, so thought for her benefit, I'd post a few that apply over there:

  • A city ordinance states that a person cannot go barefoot without first obtaining a special five-dollar permit.
  • It is illegal to take more than three sips of beer at a time while standing.
  • It is illegal for one to shoot a buffalo from the second story of a hotel.
  • It is illegal to milk another person’s cow.
  • A recently passed anticrime law requires criminals to give their victims 24 hours notice, either orally or in writing, and to explain the nature of the crime to be committed.

  I've managed to bite through my blue-pen during the course of writing this entry and probably ought to go was my mouth out.

  So anyway, behave yourself people, I don't want to turn on the news tommorow to hear about anyone being imprisoned for dying in the Houses of Parliament; you have been warned (that is, about potential arrest, not dying).

  

  (To clarify for those few who are a little confused by this picture this man on the left is an on-duty policeman)

  Best wishes,

  Carax.

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