It would appear that there really is a point to this patriarchal power. For a man has put out a fire on Southend Pier by peeing on it – or as one headline has it, by using his penis:
Pier Pee-r: Dad labelled hero for putting out fire with penis
Well, no, not really, we’ve not had an incident of flapping about and smothering the fire:
Man hailed a ‘hero’ after extinguishing fire on Southend Pier by peeing on it Thomas Watson spotted flames on the 1.3 mile pier and decided to take things into his own hands.
Ah, yes, that’s better, and every subeditor in the country is rubbing hands with glee at the opportunities such a story offers. You know, bad puns and all that.
A Southend Borough Council spokesperson told the BBC: “”Whilst we have faith our sprinkler system would have soon sprung into action, we understand the visitor deployed his own sprinkler system to swiftly extinguish the miniature inferno.”
Not just subeditors, obviously.
But there is that patriarchy thing. It has been said, and seriously proposed in Sweden as a possible law, that we must stop men peeing standing up because patriarchy. But if that were to happen how many children would burn to death upon British piers (those allegations about British peers were found to be nonsense)? Who could aim appropriately if life had been spent sitting down?
The is really only one serious comment in this whole story though. His wife has said that it’s lucky it was a very small fire.