Demand for swimming armbands is often high at this time of year, even if, unusually, there are parts of the country where they are required to transport children from the front door to the garage. These bright, orange devices have, customarily, been associated with safety. They do, after all, prevent youngsters from sinking. Now it has emerged that in the Bournemouth area these flotation instruments are deemed a menace. For when parents lend them to others there is the risk that more than one mouth may inflate them, spreading germs in the process.

When one considers what else small children have been known to do in swimming pools, the transfer of a modest number of germs might not seem consequential. Officials in Dorset beg to differ. The Institute of Sports and Recreation Management - which obviously aspires to become a sort of Ofpuff - insists that it would require a full-time member of staff to supervise adults as they swap armbands for their offspring, checking for faulty valves and punctures, ensuring that the bands employed were of an ideal size and offering parents training in how to blow them up.

Whether there is a policy of mandatory breath-testing before lips are applied to bands is unclear but it would hardly be surprising if there were.

This is insane. Children using swimming pools share changing facilities and water itself, which, presuming it is not been replaced entirely by disinfectant, may well lead to germs entering the system. Swimming instructors, too, come packed with potentially unhealthy bacteria. And are the Spiderman trunks beloved by toddlers reckless? At least Dorset residents have an alternative beyond the reach of regulators. It is called the sea.