Whitehall in a whirl over Poohsticks

LONDON: First an engineer came up with a formula for the perfect Poohstick. Then Visit England released a list of the best places to play the game, invented by Winnie the fictional bear. There was even a new book, called Poohstickopedia.

It was enough to make civil service mandarins in Whitehall get nervous.

Poohsticks is a sport first mentioned in The House at Pooh Corner by AA Milne. It is a simple sport which can be played on any bridge over running water: each player drops a stick on the upstream side of a bridge and the one whose stick first appears on the other side is the winner.

Now, normally the wheels of the UK government turn slowly, but this time it sprang into action, with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport sending out an urgent missive on Twitter.

“When playing #Poohsticks, do not allow children to lean out over sides of the bridge. Children should be supervised at all times by an adult,” it said. “When playing # Poohsticks check bridge sidebarriers are safe height.”

And so Poohsticksgate began. James Cook demanded an end to government interference, tweeting: “Unregulated street Poohsticks for all!”

But Ned Donovan, a journalist, noted soberly: “The underground Poohsticks scene needs to be tackled.”

The department then mysteriously deleted the tweets, leading Donovan to tweet: “Now that DCMS have retracted their Poohsticks rules, rural rivers will run with the blood of those killed playing the unregulated game.” – The Independent