Confessions of a Wino

Gordon Brown’s nanny state has reached a new high in the form of film censorship and advice.  I was watching an advert on TV for a kids film and the smallprint warning said “contains mild threat and comic fight scenes”.  What is the point of such a warning?  It is inconsistent with other media and not very helpful in any case.

Take an average episode of Dr Who that is aired by the BBC at peak family viewing time on a Saturday tea time.  I used to watch regularly in the 1970’s – Jon Pertwee was my Doctor.  There is more to frighten children than any amount of comic fighting.  By the time I watched The Omen, I was fully prepared.  It could have been labelled “may contain mild Satanic undertones”.  But Damien was simply nowhere near as scary as a Dalek.

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It used to snow more often in the north of England.  One childhood memory of Cheadle Hulme in the 1970s, had us creating a roadblock from several snowballs as big as a medium sized Yeti monster, only to get caught by one of the parents.  It took so much more effort to deconstruct the abominable frozen white barrier without the adrenalin filled laughter that drove and inspired us through the construction phase.

On Easter Sunday 2008, we looked out of the window at 7am – whiteout – awesome….let’s off to the hills for a walk!  I have one life rule on walking – I’ll do anything as long as there is a pub at the end.  And so we found ourselves at Barley, Lancashire, and the Pendle Inn.

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