Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

U.K.: Xmas tree “designed according to principles of health and safety”

The new holiday decoration in the town of Poole, Dorset,

has no trunk so it won’t blow over, no branches to break off and land on someone’s head, no pine needles to poke a passer-by in the eye, no decorations for drunken teenagers to steal and no angel, presumably because it would need a dangerously long ladder to place it at the top.

One onlooker describes it as “horrible”. [Times Online via Free-Range Kids; & welcome Damon Root/Reason “Hit and Run” (calling us “the indispensable Overlawyered.com”, Coyote, Ed Driscoll, Musing Minds readers]

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21 Comments

  • What a great use for used indoor carpet!

    • By wfjag

  • How many children are going to have to die from the plague of Christmas Trees? If the town of Poole’s tree can save one life or prevent one injury than certainly a little “ugliness” is a small price to pay. Won’t anyone think of the children?

    • By Shtetl G

  • I don’t think they are quite there yet. If it collapses, it looks like it would flatten anyone nearby – also, that point on top could impale sky divers. I think they have to lose the triangular shape, or lay it on the ground (after making sure there is no slippery material involved).

  • If it saves just one life, it’s worth it!

  • I’m blind!

    Bob

  • Looks cheap, tawdry, and vaguely pornographic to me.

    Then again, any product of socialist government bureaucracy looks cheap, tawdry, and vaguely pornographic to me.

    Last years magnificent tree cost $1000. This bizarre object d’art cost $30,000 and looks like it cost $10 to make.

  • mmm, this is what being overly politically correct gets you. a featureless piece of crap on a stick.

    • By A.W.

  • […] Via the indispensable Overlawyered.com, The Times (London) reports on one British city’s depressing and hilarious attempt to craft a Christmas tree “according to the principles of health and safety, circa 2009”: […]

  • From the writeup, I assumed it was a joke, and a pretty good one. Maybe the link would go to the Onion.

    • By roy

  • Paint it orange and it can be used to warn of road construction during the construction season, then paint it back to green at Christmas. It will eventually save money, all the while looking really terrible.

    • By Doug

  • […] Hit & Run blog, Damon W. Root explores yet another front in the War On Christmas: Via the indispensable Overlawyered.com, The Times (London) reports on one British city’s depressing […]

  • Fascinated by the article, I noticed on the latest rereading this one particular sentence:

    In 2002, the most recent year for which statistics are available, 1,000 people needed hospital treatment for injuries inflicted by trees.

    The article does not specify how the trees inflict these injuries. Perhaps they lay in wait in the basement and come up to your bedroom at night and use cutlery from your kitchen on you.

    Bob

  • The article does not specify how the trees inflict these injuries.

    You obviously have not seen The Wizard of Oz of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

    Trees can be very mean.

  • Actually this seasonal holiday decoration is, in itself dangerous. Poole town council will, next year, simply paint a tree on a wall using lead-free paint of a colour not likely to cause offence to any minority group. The council is considering grey as appropriate but is in consultation with a number of senior citizen groups, just in case.

    • By ps

  • The best example I can think of where a christmas tree inflicted harm was a video I saw a while ago about people using their turkey fryer for the first time. The most amusing ones involved the use of this device in the living room, around the xmas tree. I think there were several cases of hot oil splashing out of the pot onto the tree/floor/presents, and catching fire. In the excitement, several people try to put out the tree, and it of course falls over on them and the pot of hot oil, making the situation MUCH more amusing. And thru it all, the camera-person continues to roll the film…

    • By rxc

  • “The most amusing ones involved the use of this device in the living room, around the xmas tree. ”

    Dear rxc:

    Please, please, please tell me you’re making this up.

    I find the alternative too terrible to contemplate.

  • Dear RXC,

    please provide a link.

    Bob

  • To me, it looks like a Minuteman II MIRV reentry vehicle. Warmongering when we celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace! Also, I don’t believe in fairies — in fact belief in them is contrary to my religion. So what’s with those offensive lights?

    • By bfs

  • Are you *sure* the authors of this article aren’t pulling your leg? In any event, if people are being injured by Chr-stmas trees, it’s almost certainly G-d’s will, and we shouldn’t intervene.

    • By Robert

  • http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2009/12/08/City-replaces-22800-fake-tree-with-real/UPI-94461260313851/

    • By VMS

  • […] though purportedly superior on health and safety grounds, was unpopular and got vandalized. [UPI, earlier; h/t reader VMS in […]