Offended? You Might Be (From The Argus)

Offended? You Might Be

11:01am Tuesday 14th July 2009

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By Colin Houlson - Life, Hove and everything »

In his ongoing quest to eradicate evil from the streets of Gotham City, Batman is plagued by his arch-nemesis The Joker. The clown prince of crime uses lunacy and dark humour to undermine Batman's heroic stoicism and moral rectitude, often pushing the Dark Knight to the very edge of insanity before order finally triumphs over chaos. The streets of Carfax, Horsham, recently played host to a very similar battle as the caped crusaders of Horsham District Council decided to pit their wits against a man known only as John O'Sullivan, owner of The Candy Box sweet shop.

O'Sullivan's plan was simple yet brilliant. The cunning genius displayed a series of spoof newspaper headlines outside his shop in a chilling bid to, as he brazenly admitted, 'make people laugh because life is so miserable at the moment'. The headlines included phrases like 'Local Youths Abduct UFO', 'Crawley Girl Gives Birth To Pitbull' (far-fetched, but more believable than the Nativity story) and 'MPs: What A Load Of...', with the final word blanked out. Faced with such a blatant assault on life as they knew it, Horsham District Council leapt into action. O'Sullivan was warned that he'd be taken to court unless he put an end to his pranks. A council spokesperson said: 'We can confirm that the council has received recent complaints about what has been written on the A-board outside the shop. As a message posted there was considered to be potentially offensive, a street scene officer from the council asked for its removal.' O'Sullivan was told he faced prosecution. He was also visited by a PCSO (not the acronym for a team of global superheroes, but a police community support officer) and a policewoman. 'She said the boards have got to stop,' O'Sullivan told the Brighton Argus. 'She asked if I realised I could be arrested.'

There are so many issues raised by this story, it's hard to know where to begin. Fixing the world with a steely glare from beneath their crimefighting cowl, Horsham District Council is obviously guilty of a sense of humour bypass that could circumvent Royston Vasey. Have they ever read the genuine headlines on trashy tabloids like the Sun and the Star? If it intends to take action against every newsagent who sells publications bearing those sorts of headlines, it'll be impossible to buy a newspaper. John O'Sullivan's blanked-out headline was itself referring to the Sun story of 19th June about the censored parliamentary expenses scandal, entitled 'What A Bunch Of Blankers'. Did the council wag its finger at anyone about that headline? Of course not.

If the council were any more po-faced over this story they'd be a red Teletubby... Presumably this is how they missed the humour of a piece in their own publication the Horsham District News. The Spring 2009 issue advertises a 'pull out and keep recycling calendar'. That should be 'pull out and recycle recycling calendar', surely? And what does 'potentially offensive' mean? I assume it's something that MIGHT cause insult or injury, but what a broad church that is. I'm sure we all have our personal bugbears and feel the world would be a richer, more harmonious place to live in if we didn't have to endure them. For example, I'm genuinely offended by the existence of Australian cricket captain Ricky Ponting, Stereophonics, the BNP, Strictly Come Dancing, David Cameron, Didier Drogba... I could go on.

OK, I will... Jon Gaunt, Fearne Cotton, rugby, Southern Trains, the bandy-legged man on that ubiquitous price comparison site ad, Chris Moyles, people who complain about immigration, Michael Bay films, Snow Patrol, James Blunt, grown adults cycling on the pavement (still!), Loyd Grossman's Carbonara With Smoked Pancetta pasta sauce, Sam Allardyce's football philosophy, Dame Vivienne Westwood's childlike eco philosophy, Leon The Assassin, the way Giles Coren eats, Pit Bull terriers (see Giles Coren), F1 racing (not a sport), White Lies, BUPA, Peaches Geldof, religion and, worst of all, intolerant people.

Unfortunately, I can't give the local police station a bell every time my offensiveness-meter starts tickling maximum, so why should Horsham District Council waste time and public money over something as petty and preposterous as this? Inspired by the council's own investigative skills, I can only deduce, my dear Watsons, that they don't have enough to do with their time. Assuming they've exhausted all of the possibilities that thumb twiddling brings, I tried to come up with a few suggestions for activities that might enable them to get through a day at work without needing to act as moral guardians against crimes that don't exist.

Firstly, I considered board games. Blankety Blank, a game for three to six players based on the TV show of the same name, is clearly a no-no after recent events. Given the council's passion for detection, Cluedo appeared to be an ideal choice - but then I imagined what would happen if they couldn't work out who the killer was, the police would have to be called in again and we'd all be back at square one. Scrabble is also dangerous territory because potentially offensive words like 'bum' or 'work' might crop up. As for Monopoly, it would be necessary to call a planning meeting every time someone wanted to put up a house or hotel, so that's a write-off. Computer consoles are a minefield, too. Nintendo Wii sounds, oo-er, a bit rude; Microsoft's X-Box contains the letter X, which takes us into XXX territory; Sony Playstation is an anagram of 'analysis on potty' and I don't even want to go there. No doubt Frisbees and ball games would contravene all kinds of health and safety laws, so I was really struggling.

Then it hit me. What if they kept themselves busy following the dictums of the Local Government Charter and ensured that 'resources are used efficiently and effectively and services are provided in accordance with the best value principles to best meet the needs of the local community', while striving to 'improve the overall quality of life of people in the local community'?

It's a long shot, but 'potentially' it might just work...