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Lighten up, ice cream van is a sure sign spring’s here
• I READ Jane Lewis’s letter with both dismay and disbelief (Is ice cream van at park the way to beat obesity? March 27). I have never heard such nonsense in my life. I found myself checking the top of the page to see if the date was April 1 and this was nothing more than a silly April Fool!
If “at the very least the ice cream van was positioned across the road”, as Ms Lewis suggests, it is more than likely that the council would then have to adjust the road accordingly, in order to make it safe for over-excited children rushing out of the playground and dashing across the road for their ice creams.
This would probably involve a local consultation, followed by thousands of pounds worth of our council tax spent on more humps, perhaps a width restriction or two or maybe even total road closure.
Then, oh dear, there might be the problem of children queuing up on the sunny side of the street, subjecting themselves to potential sunburn. And in order not to upset another set of parents and protect from this danger, the council would be forced to employ a park warden with a megaphone reminding everyone in the queue to apply sunscreen in order to avoid burning. Maybe a first-aider should be on stand-by too in case of any oversights.
Another possible answer might be for Gordon Brown to look into increasing tax on ice creams to discourage binge-eating. That might help.
Has anyone else noticed how ridiculous this country has become? We live in an over-protective nanny state where people are becoming more and more reliant on others taking responsibility for them. Something as simple as saying no to a child is surely a sad sign of this.
Real life is about making the right choices, resisting wrongful temptation and being responsible for one’s self. I choose to bring my children up knowing they can’t have everything they see or want. I don’t want to hide these things from them. I feel it’s important for them to grow up understanding this.
Aside from all of this, the ice cream van is part of the park and has been for many years. Personally, it makes me smile and is a sure sign that the winter is over.
Buy yourself a large 99 Ms Lewis, and one each for your children, on me, and try to see the good side of this.
NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED
• HOW easy it is to blame childhood obesity on too many 99s. Has it not got more to do with the availability of computer games and kids not playing outside because of parental worries about traffic and stranger danger?
Tina’s Ices should be cherished. When Tina returned last month, it was the cause of huge excitement for my children, who ran up the street, chanting: “Tina’s back!”
I saw other kids similarly thrilled, as were many adults. Never mind swallows, you know summer is coming when Tina’s back on Highbury Fields.
So, to the lady who thinks that the council should swoop on Tina to save the borough’s youth from a flab attack, Tina’s van has been a part of local life for 12 years, a lot longer than the modern obesity epidemic. Hands off our ice creams!
LOWRI TURNER
N5
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