Graduating students have been asked not to throw mortar boards in the air - in case they have someone's eye out.

Bosses at Anglia Ruskin University want to stop the age-old tradition of hurling headgear skywards on graduation day. They say someone could be "blinded or even worse" if one of the flat-topped hats fell on them

Student Union president Frankie Whiffen, 23, said: "It's outrageous and puts a dampener on the big day. It's like banning graduation pictures outdoors in case an apple or a pigeon falls on someone's head. Who is going to go round stopping it anyway - the hat police?"

The uni, where 3,500 students graduate from campuses in Cambridge and Chelmsford, Essex, annually, said it made the request because one person was taken to hospital after being hit seven years ago. It was also worried the hats, supplied to students just for the ceremony, would get damaged. A spokeswoman said: "Our suppliers support us. I'm sure other universities will follow."

Roger Bibbings, of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, said: "It's a great pity if over-zealousness on health and safety grounds leads to people's fun being curtailed." Shadow higher education minister Rob Wilson added: "It's a mortar board - not a mortar bomb."  And Chay Champness, of the British Safety Council, called for "sensible decision making, not the needless outlawing of age-old traditions".

A caelo usque ad centrum as we used to say in college.

There were always one or two idiots...

The original was here.