Meet the Nanny Spider: it wants to wrap you up in little rules and eat your life

From The Age: Is there any activity too mundane to be regulated? Probably not. IGNORANCE of the law is no excuse. So here's a bunch of things you can't do without council approval. You can't sit in a chair on your nature strip. (The council will impound your chair.) Nor can you play with toy cars on your nature strip, according to the City of Maroondah's Proposed Local Law No. 8. You can't set up a lemonade stand. (The stand will be confiscated.) Nor can you put lemonade on a tray and offer to sell it. Well, you could; but you'd have to provide proof to the council that you possess public liability insurance of at least $10 million. You'd also need to submit a Temporary Food Event Application and Footpath Trading Permit to the council, as well as an Events Food Safety Program to the Department of Human Services - having familiarised yourself with a 40-page document detailing the protocols for cleaning, producing, acquiring the ingredients for and properly labelling your lemonade. (This is no doubt why we don't have a vibrant street food culture like America.) You can't hold a street party. You can't take a half-empty bottle of wine or spirits home from a dinner party, unless your journey home avoids footpaths, parks or travelling on roads. (Drink it all at the party. That'll learn 'em.)

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