Silly season? This year it’s totally barking

N EvER mind the Whitehall department which convenes every Monday to give me something to write about. This week, the whole world has decided to get in on the act.

August is supposed to be what is known in the trade as the ‘silly season’, when ‘real’ news is in short supply and jobbing hacks like me have to scratch around to find something to fill our columns.

Not so today. It’s difficult to know where to start. Some of the stories aren’t so much silly as sufficiently certifiable to be sectioned under the Mental Health Act.

Should I kick off with the sheep race in Scotland which has been abandoned after a campaign by animal rights fundamentalists?

Or the council in Suffolk which has scrapped all road-signs referring to Cats’ Eyes following complaints that they were glorifying cruelty to cats?

Maybe I should start with the Somerset carnival parade which has dropped its traditional carnival queen in favour of five ‘carnival ambassadors’.

That’s probably enough to be going on with, although there’s more. Plenty more, some of which will have to wait.

So here goes. Are you sitting comfortably, children? Then I’ll begin.

For the past five years, a sheep race has been held in the Scottish town of Moffat, in Dumfries and Galloway. The sheep run through the streets with knitted jockeys tied to their backs.

The event has attracted a growing number of people and firmly established itself as a local tradition.

Now, though, it has been scrapped after 83,000 people ‘signed’ an online petition. No, they didn’t.

THEy

pressed a button on their mobile phones, or retweeted, or texted, or whatever it is they do when they want to express their bogus moral superiority and confected outrage. Most of them would never even have heard of the race until it popped up in their inbox.

They certainly weren’t locals. The population of Moffat is 2,500. Until recently, there had not been a single objection.

But the council responded to the online mob by demanding that the race should be properly licensed — something the organisers couldn’t afford, so they had to call it off.

Needless to say, the killjoys were ecstatic. One of the campaigners said: ‘No one asked the sheep.’

Of course not. They’re sheep. They can’t talk. But that’s not the point. How do the protesters know the sheep weren’t having the time of their lives? It can’t be much fun being a sheep, standing around all day waiting to be turned into lamb chops and shepherd’s pie.

If anyone could have asked the sheep — Dr Dolittle, for instance — they may well have said they loved taking part in the race.

How dare 83,000 people deny these animals a great day out.

Why the hell does anyone take the slightest bit of notice of online petitions? Or complaints about

anything from interfering busybodies who are clearly unhinged.

Take the council in Suffolk which has withdrawn the Cats’ Eyes notices because they could be ‘misinterpreted’ by children and foreign tourists.

Frances Knobel, a visitor from Florida, said: ‘I had to stop the car and go back to see if I had read the sign correctly. It didn’t make any sense and seemed very gruesome that people would boast that poor domestic animals were being so horribly mistreated.

‘A local explained that it was the name that Brits gave to the light-reflecting rubber pads that reflect headlights.’

We knew that, pet. So what’s the problem? British tourists in Florida are often aghast when they see ‘dolphin’ on the menu, until it’s explained that dolphin is the local name for the fish also known as mahi-mahi.

As far as I’m aware, the governor of Florida hasn’t ordered restaurants to stop using the term ‘dolphin’ just in case a few visitors get the impression they’re serving up Flipper and chips.

But it turns out it’s not just lassies from Tallahassee who are discombobulated by the term Cats’ Eyes.

Rebecca Brewer, of Ipswich, said: ‘ I have a five- year- old daughter who was very upset the first time she saw the sign — she really thought cruel people were torturing cats. I had to explain to her what it meant — and that our pet cat was quite safe.’ And your point is? Parents have been having that conversation with their kids ever since Cat’s Eyes were invented 80-odd years ago.

So why has Suffolk council decided to waste time and money changing the name to ‘road studs’? There is, of course, no accounting for the ocean-going stupidity of the Great British Jobsworth.

But how long before some madwoman objects to ‘ studs’ on the grounds that it celebrates male sexuality and encourages rapists?

Which brings us to Frome, in Somerset, where the carnival queen competition has been given the elbow because it is ‘ not in keeping with 21st-century values’.

PROTESTERS

claim the event gives men the opportunity to ‘perve’ at attractive young women. Instead, the carnival procession will feature five ‘carnival ambassadors’ — two aged between seven and 12, two aged 13 and above and one with no upper age limit.

This, in itself, is fraught with opportunity for misinterpretation. No doubt child protection activists will object on the grounds that parading children through town on the back of a float will only pander to men of the Jimmy Savile persuasion.

Someone from Age Concern is bound to point out that scrapping the upper age limit will turn the celebration of innocent beauty into Grab A Granny Nite.

If they really want to reflect 21st- century values, they’ll have to include at least one transgender ambassador and a woman in a burka, as a basis for negotiation.

Still, all contributions gratefully received. And far from scratching around, I’ve only scratched the surface. There’s enough lunacy knocking about to keep Gary in cartoon material for the next few weeks.

And I haven’t even mentioned the Welsh bee rustlers, or the bloke in Wiltshire who’s adopted a muntjac — also known as the barking deer.

Still, there’s always Friday. The committee which meets to give me something to write about can take the rest of the week off.