Good heavens, what's this? A coal mine disaster in China, and our very own safety regulators are wringing their hands like maiden aunts at a rave. Apparently, there are secret tunnels down there, and not the fun sort one might use to sneak into the Palace for a peek at the crown jewels.
No, these are the sort that collapse and kill people. How terribly inconsiderate of the earth to do that. The Health and Safety Executive, bless their clipboard-clutching souls, have now warned that British coal mines might suffer a similar fate.
A fate, I might add, that no self-respecting coal mine has suffered in years because we've practically given up on the whole digging thing. But never mind facts, let's have a panic. The report, a thriller titled 'Potential Catastrophic Risks in UK Deep Coal Mines', reads like a dystopian novel penned by a particularly pessimistic geologist.
It warns of 'unexpected ground movements' and 'hidden voids'. Voids! The very word conjures images of hobbits and existential dread.
But I say, if these tunnels are so secret, perhaps they're just shy. Or maybe they're the remnants of a long-forgotten civilisation of miner moles who retreated deeper when the Industrial Revolution got too noisy. Either way, our regulators demand action.
They want more inspections, more surveys, more forms in triplicate. I say we solve this problem the British way: by closing all the mines and importing our coal from places with more reliable tunnel-keeping. Or, failing that, by filling every potential void with gin.
It's sterile, it's flammable, and it makes the thought of being buried alive slightly more bearable. But wait, there's more. The Chinese disaster, you see, was exacerbated by 'unauthorised' digging.
Unauthorised! As if coal mines have ever been a hotbed of regulatory compliance. Imagine the scene: a miner, pickaxe in hand, looking over his shoulder for the HSE equivalent of a hall monitor.
'Sorry, lads, can't dig here, it's not in the approved zone.' It's almost as if the very nature of mining involves extracting resources from the earth, which tends to be rather full of... earth.
And holes. And occasionally, tunnels. Secret or otherwise.
So what's the solution? According to the report, we need better mapping of underground voids. That's right, map them.
Because nothing says safety like a government cartographer with a compass and a prayer. I propose a more innovative approach: hire a team of psychics to locate these voids. Or better yet, put the miners on the payroll of a reality TV show.
'Celebrity Mine Shaft: Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?' The ratings would be fantastic. But I digress.
The real issue is that we've become a nation of safety-obsessed ninnies, afraid of our own shadows, especially if those shadows are cast by a secret tunnel. We've lost the pioneering spirit that built an empire on coal and tea and stiff upper lips. Now we sit in our centrally heated homes, sipping fair-trade lattes, and tutting at the Chinese for their shoddy tunnelling.
But mark my words, the moment we ban the last coal mine, we'll start importing secret tunnels from abroad. And then where will we be? In a void, that's where.
A secret, regulatory void. And the HSE will be there, form in hand, asking for a risk assessment.
