Radio 4’s You & Yours had an interesting piece about limitations on the sale of Christmas crackers – a subject which exercised both Michael Ellis, MP for Northampton North, & the prime minister at PMQs last week. Turns out that, far from being modern EU inspired elf’n’safety gorn mad, restrictions on the sale to children of anything that goes bang have been in place since the Victorian age.
These & similar age restrictions are becoming much more apparent to ordinary shoppers with the growth of self checkouts in supermarkets. You may do the work of scanning all by yourself, but an assistant still has to be on hand to let you complete the transaction by checking your id, if a simple visual inspection is not enough to confirm that you are of mature years & you are trying to buy something dangerous. In the past the check out assistants would discreetly press the right button & you would be none the wiser; now you may have to wait until they can get round to you.
The latest oddity that has affected me - Halls Extra Strong throat lozenges cannot be sold to those under the age of 16.
