Modern times

The newspapers just love stories like these. From The Telegraph (here):

"The crackdown on hoodie-wearing lager louts and ladettes knows no age barriers… as an 82-year-old grandmother has discovered.
When Betty Wilbraham, a retired teacher, popped into the Hereward pub in Ely, Cambs, at lunchtime for a half of Guinness and fish and chips, she did not even notice the "no hats" sign.
But when she got to the bar, she was ordered to remove her black hat with a maroon ribbon for "security reasons". Apparently, there was a risk she would not be recognised on CCTV cameras covering the trendy bar if she started any trouble."

and from The Times (here):

"A man who put two letters in a bin has been given a £50 fixed-penalty notice.
Andy Tierney, 24, was leaving his house in Hinckley, Leicestershire, when the postman gave him the letters. After opening the items of junk mail, he put them in a bin that was attached to a nearby lamppost.
Accusing him of “misuse of a public bin”, officials at Hinckley and Bosworth Council traced him from the addresses on the envelopes and issued the notice. Their letter read: “Domestic refuse from your property was dumped in a street litter-bin.”

But what do they tell us about our society, other than the fact that idiots are occasionally put in charge?

Update:

The BBC website suggests that The Times may not have the whole story:

"Steve Atkinson, the council's chief executive, said: "We've issued a notice - not that he has committed an offence but we've reason to believe that he has - and we are reviewing the evidence.
"We're talking about a large carrier bag which had other domestic rubbish in it. "If it had just been a couple of pieces of junk mail then we wouldn't do something like that - we'd be rightly criticised, but it was considerably more than that."