A Question Of Degrees

‘IF you think about it, our antiquated system of identifying people by name was just crying out for reform.

Victorious England rugby captain

After all, the fact that one of the England rugby captain’s ancestors was called John is not a great way of differentiating him from a former Swedish weather girl who also boasts an ancestor of the same name.

What we don’t know yet, however, is whether we will be able to pay extra to personalise our ID number in the same way as some of us do now with car licence plates.

It goes without saying that Tony will be GOD1, but the Government will surely not pass up the opportunity to raise much-needed revenue by auctioning off other variations on a theme.

For now, however, it has other fish to fry – or rather not to fry.

The Times reports that, such is our inability to run a bath correctly, the Government has stepped in (not literally) and is going to do it for us.

From now on, all bath water will have to be heated to a temperature specified by Whitehall to prevent the 570 serious scalding injuries recorded in Britain each year.

‘Many are caused when parents run a bath for their child by turning on the hot tap first and the child jumps in before the cold water has been added,’ reports the paper.

‘Others occur when parents top up the hot water in a bath tub already occupied by children and forget to turn it off.’

The Government is considering a two-tier approach to temperature, with children and old people bathing in water heated to 43C and adults in water at 47C.

However, there are fears that the legislation will spell the end of the cold bath, a public school institution on which an empire was built.

Cold baths today, buggery tomorrow. It’s a slippery slope…’

Posted: 7th, January 2004 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink