Apple, Apple, Toil and Trouble…

From the Metro 29/10/10:

 

Apple bobbing is a traditional game to play on Halloween but health chiefs say the ‘dangerous’ activity could end up leaving you blind.

A ‘high velocity impact with an apple’ has the potential to cause serious eye injury while unclean water could lead to infection, officials say.

They recommend wearing goggles, disinfecting water containers and removing apple stalks before dunking your head into a bowl of water to retrieve the fruit.

An eye expert even suggested children remove the floating apples with their hands instead of their mouth, in a new twist on the Halloween game.

They also warned of the dangers of fancy-dress contact lenses, which could cause irritation, and lanterns – because people occasionally hit their head on them. ‘Casualty staff have seen children and adults turning up on Halloween with scratches on the cornea and blunt eye injuries from impacts caused by apple bobbing,’ said consultant ophthalmologist Parwez Hossain.

Anybody who caught the brand spanking new Poirot in the week, will no doubt subscribe to the view that bobbing for apples can prove entirely dangerous to your health (particularly if you’ve been boasting openly shortly beforehand that you saw a murder several years ago)!!!
BTW – I’m only halfway through watching it on ITV Catchup – so please, no spoilers in the comments!

So, besides being drowned in the water, there are a bunch of other risks which bobbers have to face.

Perhaps most seriously, there’s the remote possibility of a child actually getting a bite out of one the apples and obtaining some vitamins from it. Given that the typical British child seems to survive on the fruits of the Colonel’s efforts down at KFC or by woofing down a Mc-something-or-other-with-cheese, a whole chunk of apple might send their digestive systems into meltdown.

Parents of a litigious nature are advised to fit head-cams to their kids’ costumes this Halloween which can record the negligent acts or omissions of other parents who dare to allow apple bobbing to take place. For parents planning on letting their child host a Halloween party in the family home (or otherwise under their control), the advice is to hire a lifeguard for the evening and have a carpet shampooer on standby.

Oh, and make sure you’ve plenty of liability insurance, too!