On being prepared

Many years ago I was working in Belgium for the year, and returned home briefly for a visit to the Spring Harvest Christian Conference. One of my reasons for being there was to act with a small theatre company called ‘Potters Clay’. Time for preparations was limited, and many of my lines had to be learnt whilst travelling. I have a distinct memory of standing in the wings still reciting my lines to myself for a sketch entitled ‘be prepared’! It was hard to escape the irony!

There are times, though, when you can be over-prepared, and allow risk aversion to drive you too much. Yesterday Borough Councils in England and Wales revealed the more bizarre requests made to them under the Freedom of Information act. My festive favourite is the request to Cheltenham Borough Council to state what they would do in the event of Santa’s fully laden sleigh crash landing in the Borough:

• Who would rescue Santa?
• Who would round up any stray reindeer?
• Who would clear the crash site?

Interestingly, nothing was asked about contingency plans for present delivery – but I guess that is outside the purview of one local borough!

I am reminded of the chieftain in the Asterix books, Vitalstatistix, who lived in permanent fear of the sky falling on his head. Maybe there is a job for him in a Borough Council somewhere?

Image: asterix.com

For a picture of how a sleigh crash might look you can  click here.