From The Daily Telegraph of 19/6/2012:
‘Council officials and
police stormed a village pub believing it was holding an unlicensed late-night
show, only to discover that 4am was the
name of a band, not the time of the event.
‘Three licensing
officers and two policemen raided The Feathers in Laleham, Surrey, after seeing
an advertisement promising “music from 4am”.
‘They soon discovered
that 4am referred to a soul-funk duo, who were on stage at a far more sociable
time.
‘Kate Dillon, the pub’s
landlord, said she was “amazed” at the operation by Spelthorne borough council,
which took place at 10pm . . .
‘Simon Freeman, who was
in the audience, added: “these two police officers came in with these three
guys from the council and they were very
confrontational. You should have seen
their faces when they realised that the name of the band was 4am, not the time
of the gig . . .”’
---------
The mind boggles.
Not alone did the sign
advertise ‘from 4am’, but the very
fact of the event being advertised might surely be expected to
raise doubts in the mind of anyone of ordinary intelligence, prompting them to
ask questions, before raiding the pub, all guns blazing, with ‘plod’ in
tow. Yet what we are dealing with here
are seemingly not your average village idiots, but rather three council officials who
might be expected under normal circumstances to have some level of cop-on.
How is this to be explained?
One possible answer is
that there has been an upwards seepage of the stupid into levels of employment
previously out-of-bounds to them. Perhaps
a general tendency, given that there were three
officials involved, and possibly reflective also of the general dumbing down in
society that seems to have occurred over these past forty or so years.
But equally likely—or
possibly jointly likely—is that this
was a case of literalism, of the
inability to see anything in any colours other than black or white. Like modern Henry Fords, we seem to have a
generation of people in positions of authority who are increasingly unable to distinguish any nuances of
meaning beyond that of ‘the bleeding obvious’.
Or rather than unable, it may reflect more a question
of being unwilling, in a world grown
hysterical about transparency and accountability. In such a situation, where every decision
made or action taken is liable to come under a usually hostile scrutiny, it
must be a natural reaction to retreat back against the wall of the law and the literal
as a protection against having things blow up in your face. What one might call the Dun Aengus defence.
Possibly, just
possibly, this is what may have happened in the case to hand. In a world where packets of peanuts have to
have a printed warning that ‘this product contains nuts’, it is obviously
dangerous to ignore the patently obvious in any field, no matter how silly it
may seem, and with no way of knowing how it may come back to bite you.
As I say, possibly,
just possibly . . . though I don’t believe that for a moment.
