Page 51 - Demo

December 2025 | Phonebox Magazine 51See you in 2026!Dave%u2026 INTO THE VALLEY OF DEATH...The Olney Remembrance Service this year was quite the blockbuster %u2013 seriously, one of the best turnouts I%u2019ve ever seen. It was heartening to see so many young people there, proving that not all youths are still trying to figure out TikTok dances. Plus, all our local organisations and churches were present, making the whole thing a tremendous occasion.Then came the curveball. Someone approached me a few weeks back about bringing a couple of horses to the service. Why, you ask? Because of the purple poppy, which is a respectful gesture for the animals who also had a very bad war (we%u2019re talking horses, mules, donkeys, dogs %u2013 the original, non-GPS-enabled transportation system).My wife and daughter run a livery yard, meaning their business is essentially managing 30 or so horses, and so it seemed quite a sensible request.I immediately spoke to my daughter, Esther, who volunteered her horse, Bertie. Bertie is basically the Zen master of the horse world: calm, well-adjusted, and fi ne with crowds, unlike some humans I know. I reported back, confirming we could arrange for this one majestic, emotionally stable horse and his highly experienced horse woman (or, as the modern world may now insist, %u2018horse person%u2019). Yep, my daughter.Then the reply came back from someone deep within the Ministry of Fun-Sponge. The verdict: %u2018Health and Safety says NO.%u2019The %u2018issues%u2019 they cited were, as far as I could see: 1) Potential for unscheduled biological deposits (i.e., horse poo and wee) and 2) General crowd control, because nothing says %u2018unruly mob%u2019 like people looking at a calm horse.I relayed the news to Esther, explaining that some pen-pusher, armed with a deadly spreadsheet and likely having never encountered a horse and certainly never having served in the military, had deemed the whole operation too risky.The irony was thicker than wartime mud: alongside all the people killed, we%u2019re commemorating the eight million animals that perished in WW1 from exhaustion, starvation, drowning in mud and having to be euthanised on the battlefi eld %u2013 and plenty more in WW2, and now a single, gentle horse is considered an unacceptable threat.So, we decided to perform an act of rebellion, albeit perfectly legal. As Esther pointed out, while the bureaucratic powers extend to the parade route, they certainly don%u2019t extend to the general right to ride a horse in public. (I think I%u2019ve brought her up quite well). After all, riders are often in Olney, and four of our yard riders had even participated in 2019!So, my daughter and great-niece, Hattie, quietly rode down and stood reverently in front of the Cowper and Newton Museum. Take that, you tedious sods armed with your AI-populated spreadsheets and multiplechoice tick boxes.Here they are.But here%u2019s the real kicker: while the bureaucrats were busy worrying about potential equine biohazards, the actual danger materialised. During the Two-Minute Silence, as the world was meant to pause, several motorists %u2013 realising the main road by Costa was closed %u2013 decided to whiz the wrong way down the one-way street, next to Morrisons, right beside the Market Place, full of men, women and children.Let%u2019s do a quick risk assessment, shall we? Two calm horses and experienced riders: Well away from the crowd, highly skilled in standing still. Minimal risk. Drivers totally ignoring traffic regulations. Extreme risk.It%u2019s clear where the problems lie: the idiotic bureaucrats who are more interested in stopping gentle horses from honouring the fallen than addressing drivers breaking the law in a most hazardous manner. That, my friends, is modern bureaucracy in a nutshell.It%u2019s the same bureaucratic, ineffi cient mindset that accidentally releases prisoners, who then wander around bewildered, sometimes even trying to get back in! And if they%u2019re being deported, they%u2019re often just handed a massive fi stful of cash to make the journey %u2018easier.%u2019Whatever happened to the good old days when you had to work for your freedom?Take the spy George Blake in 1966: he scaled the wall at Wormwood Scrubs with a rope fashioned from size 13 knitting needles (apparently the perfect size for maximum traction). He then escaped to East Berlin inside a secret compartment in a VW Camper Van. Eff ort! Ingenuity! Crafting expertise!Or the infamous Ronnie Biggs (a train robber for all you youngsters) in 1965: He went over the Wandsworth wall on a rope ladder (not made from knitting needles), jumped onto an absurdly conspicuous bright scarlet furniture van, through a trapdoor and disappeared for 35 years. High-stakes, theatrical getaway!Charlie Wilson, another train robber, escaped from Winson Green Jail in Birmingham in 1964 when three men broke in with a mysterious master key and opened his cell door. A bit of planning there.I%u2019m not condoning anything these men did, and none of them exactly thrived. Blake lived a miserable existence in communist Russia, Biggs, totally skint, fi nally gave himself up due to wanting a British pint of bitter and the NHS, and Wilson was shot dead by a hitman in Spain, but at least they possessed ingenuity!I%u2019m really fed up with bureaucracy to the extent that I%u2019m now going to question everything that I see, or that aff ects me, and if it takes a freedom of information request then so be it, and I%u2019m studying that aspect of the law carefully as I%u2019m not out to waste anyone%u2019s time, but I do want to know why certain things happen and who is directly responsible.All of the areas I%u2019m involved with, such as event management, theatre productions, script writing, etc, are a culmination of team eff orts where we bend over backwards to give people exactly what they want and to have positive customer feedback, and I%u2019m curious as to those whose whole ambition is to hamper people as they go about their daily business.Anyway, Happy Christmas to you all, and if you come to see me in the stage show of %u2018Porridge%u2019 at Stantonbury (2nd %u2013 6th December), then do come and say hello afterwards. So long as you%u2019re not trying to close the theatre or anything like that, I%u2019m quite aff able.