The lunatics have taken over the asylum

No, not another one of my periodic diatribes about UKIP, but my reaction to a news story I saw in the Metro on the way to work earlier. A grandfather, the same age as me, coincidentally, took one of his grandchildren to a falconry centre near Bristol, and enjoyed the experience enough that he wanted to go again. So he went, on his own. And was turned away, on grounds of 'child protection'. The centre, and they're not unique, apparently, have a policy of refusing admission to unaccompanied adults. Now if this had been somewhere like one of the places we used to take K when she was small, with rides and attractions aimed at under-10s, a middle aged man turning up on his own would certainly have been incongruous, at the very least, but a falconry centre? Surely that's an unsurprising venue for a middle-aged man to attend? There might have been a bit of reductio ad absurdum creeping in, but I couldn't help wondering what the centre's reaction would've been if a gay couple had turned up. Would that be considered twice as dangerous, or would being a couple exempt such men from suspicion? What about an all-male group of twenty or thirty ornithology enthusiasts? What if this sort of policy became commonplace? There would be precious few places I'd be allowed to go, given that the prospects of my ever being anything other than single are somewhere between infinitesimal and zero. And what about public transport? Would I be obliged to get off the bus and put a paper bag over my head until any children had dispersed? I've commented often enough about 'paedo hysteria', but this seems to go even beyond that, to full-blown societal insanity. When is someone with influence going to stand up and say 'enough, this is completely out of control, we're going to be raising a generation incapable of any social interaction at all'? Not for the first time, I won't be holding my breath in expectation.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B