THE absurd extremes of health and safety mania are well known.

I’m talking about people who feel the need to impose rules which ban the simplest of innocent activities because there is a statistical chance (never mind how small) that we could be harmed in some way.

Risk is part of life, and health and safety should be about reducing it to sensible levels – not attempting the impossible task of removing it altogether.

The jobsworths epitomised by comedian Peter Kay’s Keith Lard character have been publicly ridiculed to such an extent over the past few years that it’s surprising we still find ourselves assailed by attempts to wrap us in cotton wool and introduce a sterile world in which no-one ever faces a challenge.

But we do – and two of them have popped up in the past week alone.

First we had the totally daft decision to ban a Chorley women’s group from taking home-made cakes to their own coffee afternoon.

The retired ladies of the Adlington and District Millennium Committee like to bake for their fundraising events, which they had previously held at community centres.

Then when they instead booked their local library for the afternoon they came up against the rule enforcers of Lancashire County Council who told them only shop-bought cakes and biscuits could be offered, and things like home-made shortbread and cakes were definitely out.

“Though we know home-cooked baking often tastes better than the commercially prepared kind – legal restrictions mean we can only allow packaged goods with clearly labelled ingredients,” said the county’s head of library and information services.

Moving East from Chorley, now to Accrington where Stanley fans have been told they cannot wave flags unless they have certificates to prove they are flame retardant.

Apparently there is a worry that if fans pass flags to each other they could catch fire!

My first thought is that the biggest threat to the health of Accrington Stanley as a football club is a lack of sufficient numbers of fans – not the risk of individuals suffering burns because some idiot might be theoretically able to set fire to a flag during a game.

Flag waving adds atmosphere to an occasion – just look at all the razzamatazz associated with American football games for example.

It’s plain crazy to ban them from a place where they are crying out for more crowd support.

Both of the above are examples of where regulations are far too prescriptive.

As one of the Chorley ladies, who worked for the British Safety Council until the early 1980s, rightly said the emphasis then was on industry and ensuring reasonable health and safety in the workplace.

The coalition government has made great play of the so-called ‘big society’ and freeing people from petty restriction and regulation.

Ministers can start by formally repealing laws which ban retired ladies from raising charity cash by selling cakes baked at home.

And let’s forget about trying to dream up ridiculously far-fetched ‘what if?’ scenarios and recognise just how dull our existence would be without daily challenges and risks.