Even the Independent newspaper seemed incredulous over this one.

Police in Kent, England seized a board game from protestors on the grounds it could be used to further terrorism.

But believe it or not, the satirical War on Terror: The Boardgame wasn’t singled out because you could use the box to bash someone on the head, or stab someone using the spinner, but because the game box included a balaclava for the “terrorist” in the game to wear. It even said “Evil” on it, just so there was no mistake.

The cops decided that the balaclava “could be used to conceal someone’s identity or could be used in the course of a criminal act”.

As one of the game’s designers said, “That’s absurd. A beard can conceal someone’s identity. Are the police going to start banning beards?”

That’s probably next, actually, considering the number of British Muslims who wear beards.

(N.B. I wear a beard myself, but I’m not worried because after this blog, I doubt I’d get a visa for England anyway, assuming I was crazy enough to want to visit such a nutty country).

Update: here’s a link to the War on Terror game publishers’ blog post of the incident, and a story giving even more detail on how seriously disturbed the police in England get over protests.

According to an Associated Press story, Mr. Adam Hinton is barred by court order from visiting his girlfriend Kerry Norris at her apartment in the city of Brighton and Hove in southern England. The reason? When they have sex, it’s too noisy for their neighbors.

A fellow living in Wales has found out the hard way that Great Britain has become an asylum: disturb the tranquility of the other inmates and the guards come down on you with billy clubs.

According to a story on BBC News, a man named Karl Wiosna apparently got on the wrong side of one of his neighbors by playing Cher and U2 too loud on his stereo, so the neighbor went whining to the “town council”. The town council is like a Homeowners’ Association here in the states; they claim to be for everyone’s benefit but if you annoy the wrong person, they will do everything they can to ruin your life.

In this case, they sent “environmental health officers” (read: more nosy neighbors) around to Wiosna’s house and after all kinds of no doubt expensive research, decided that he had played his music too loud on two separate occasions. From the article:

During the raid on his home, council officers, aided by police, seized Wiosna’s speakers, two tape decks and record players, portable radio and more than 30 tape cassettes and book of CDs..All of Wiosna’s equipment has now been destroyed and he was also fined £265 ($600) by local magistrates after he admitted the charges against him.

Jeepers creepers, if they did this to a grown man with a stereo, what do they do to kids starting up a band? Do they give them a warning or do they just chop their arms off?