Fun_People Archive
20 Jun
...but what about accordions?

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Thu, 20 Jun 96 20:27:23 -0700
To: Fun_People
Subject: ...but what about accordions?

[...or banjos?  -psl]


Forwarded-by: John Gilmore <gnu@toad.com>
Forwarded-by: hopkins@interval.com (Don Hopkins)
From: David Wadsworth <dwadsw@etna.demon.co.uk>

What is the connection between crypto and bagpipes? Well crypto is regarded
as an armament by the US ITAR regulations.  Later this month a British court
is to rule as to whether bagpipes are still classified as "instruments of
war"!  The story is in todays Times newspaper (The British one) It seems
that a piper is being taken to court for practising on Hampstead Heath,
which has a bye-law forbidding music.  Mr Brooks, the piper, has denied the
charge, citing a case in 1746, where bagpipes were declared to be
instruments of war, not musical instruments, and a subsequent Act of
Parliament which specifically stated that they were weapons. He claims he
wasn't playing a musicaL instrument, but practising with a weapon!

The imagination boggles if his claim is successful! Will it be possible to
sue pipers for assault with a deadly weapon? Will airports be equipped with
bagpipe detectors?

© 1996 Peter Langston