As his sixth birthday approached, Morgan Smith’s parents thought hoisting the Jolly Roger would be the perfect way to make the pirate-mad youngster’s day. The flag was duly run up the pole in the back garden, leaving Morgan looking forward to a party on Saturday with lots of friends wearing eyepatches and wielding toy cutlasses.
But little did the family know that out on the treacherous high seas of bureaucracy, trouble was heading their way.
Council officials branded the skull and crossbones flag “unneighbourly” and banned Morgan’s parents Richard and Sharon from flying it. The couple must apply for planning permission at a cost of £75, and then an assessment of the 5ft by 4ft flag’s “impact” on the surrounding area of Stone, Staffordshire, will be undertaken. The intervention has sunk the plans for a pirate-themed party.
Geez… What is happening with our world? I mean.. Seriously!
Sounds like most Homeowners Associations.
Typical committees. Each member is forced to not only justify their position on the committee, but find ways of justifying the committee’s existence in the first place. And assessing the impact of a flag is exactly the kind of thing that these groups would go nuts over. It’s not a real, important issue that takes thought or ethical evaluation, so it’s the perfect make-work project for a useless committee.
In the end, they’ve earned their paychecks and nobody gets hurt. Well, a child’s birthday gets ruined, but that’s not the kind of thing they have time to worry about.
I’m going to have to argue the “slippery slope” on this one. If you let one child fly the pirate flag, pretty soon ALL the children will want to fly the pirate flag, and then we’ll have utter chaos.
In conclusion, the Stafford Borough Council is wise to forestall the looming specter of utter chaos.
(I drew the short straw on this debate topic)
I’d write a letter to the council, include a quote of the 1st ammendment, and tell them to go f**k themselves.
I bet if he faced mecca while flying the flag there wouldn’t be a problem.
If you want to know whats wrong with the UK…. it starts here, progresses through the Daily Mail newspaper and all the others like them, then ends at the all the new rules the EU is imposing.
I say we get Johnny Depp (as CAPTAIN Jack Sparrow) to come to his next birthday party.
J/P=?
#3 – Each member is forced to not online justify their position on the committee
What?
#5 ….. thats another problem with the UK …. no written constitution and no guaranteed rights….
For centuries, the greatest country on Earth, now rapidly morphing into Brazil with Muslims.
Sounds utterly British, in all the wrong ways. One big HOA.
While there I heard stories of building approvals taking 8 years, because they didn’t want to lose the countryside appeal, whatever that is. It seemed to kill some businesses while others seemed to do what they pleased.
The only thing I could finally make sense out of this was, it appeared to be tied to who you know, not what’s right or wrong.
And that, sounds utterly american.
Sounds like the nearest branch (coven? cell? cave?) of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster sould invade the council chambers and declare conspiracy against their freedom of religion.
Har, har, me hearties!
Absurd.
Bonkers, simply bonkers. Who in hell was in danger of being offended by a Jolly Roger flag? Local reformed pirates? It was a kid’s party for heavens sake, its not as if they were re-enacting the hunting, capture, rape and torture of slaves! Sometimes I really despair for our future when jumped up c*ckmonkeys like this can dictate to us (and loving every minute of it, the power-hungry, proto-fascist, humourless robots desperate for a little status and recognition; I’m guessing peer bullying and/or familial sexual abuse featured in their past)
Apologies for my strong language, but I feel there’s only one word to describe them: C*nts!
I take it this is one of those neighborhoods where it’s not safe for non whites to walk through it?
They were only going to fly it for the party; So why not take it down when the bureaucracy came knocking, then run it up first thing Saturday morning? We all know the losers who run around trying to tell you what to do are sipping chardonnay in their beachfront homesteads on the weekend, so by Monday when they return, the flag would be gone.
My local council has all sorts of rules about what I can and cannot do on my own land, and you know I don’t pay any attention!
#16…Angel….No, this behaviour is typical of ALL Councils in Britain. The Labour goverment has pretty much taken away what real powers they had and centralized everything, so the Councils are left with this kind of thing, and garbage rules.
310….Yep, it makes for interesting goverment, when just about anything can be done by goverment, as long as it dosen’t call the Queen an evil bitch and they have enough votes in Parliment. If an American wants to really have their eye’s opened, they should study law in England……even the most right wing nut job American would blush at the way goverment has control over the Law.
About 4 or 5 months ago, David Cameron’s(leader of the Tories, and probably nexty Prime Minister) Council made him take down his wind mill that he had installed, attached to the side of his home, to reduce his carbon footprint and supply power to his home. He was basically doing what the goverment(Labour) has been encouraging home owners to do. The Council said he had to ask for a new building study to make it less obvious because it ****MIGHT**** be detrimental to the asthectic of the neighborhood.
A while back I new someone who had a nice country property with a paddock beside it in which they kept some sheep. In the paddock they put up a clothing line to dry their clothes and was told by the council to take it down because they were using an agriculturally zoned area for domestic uses…. and recently a friend who owns a field and built some raised beds to grown some vegetables. The planning officer came around and when she said “is this veggie garden alright?”, the guy, being fairly sympathetic, he said ‘you can’t call it a veggie garden, but if you call it a horticultural nursery that is fine’.
Argh, prepare to board the committee so we can make them walk the plank…..Yo, ho and a bottle of rum.
This is amazingly silly. It’s also a violation of religious freedom. I don’t know exactly what the law says about religious symbols in Britain. But, followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, this may be a real violation of religious rights.
21:
I hope your are not trying to insinuate that piracy isn’t a religion….. soon I’ll have the right to copy music and software….
😀
-Ben.
Bummer. Next they’ll try to ban International Talk Like A Pirate Day: http://tinyurl.com/njbc
Scurvy Dogs…. Arrrrrghhhh!
Oh,come on! All because of a 6 yo’s birthday party! Get over it!!!!