Conkers Bonkers, again

Via Big Brother Watch, this from the Daily Wail:

Take for instance visitors to the Abbey Gardens in Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk. At least two have complained about being struck by a conker after walking beneath boughs of a large tree there.

So the council, taking no chances, put a temporary warning sign on it: Beware Falling Conkers – Please Proceed with Care. The action was condemned yesterday by visitors to the park as ‘over the top’.

It's a sad reflection on the dumbing-down of education under Labour (yes, there are elements of sarcasm there) that people cannot any longer be relied upon to know what happens in Autumn. Perhaps, instead of a warning notice, the Council should have insisted on an approved and certified training course for all park visitors:

1. Put one foot in front of the other

2. Remember to breathe regularly

3. Wear a cycle helmet from an approved supplier at all times when less than 50m (54.68 yards) from a tree

4. Keep looking upwards, but shield your eyes in bright sunshine

5. If you are hit, don't panic - the conker will probably bounce off harmlessly and give you nothing more than a bump and a story to tell to your friends afterwards

6. If you are concerned for your personal safety, seek the assistance of a park warden who is trained to show you how to identify places which are not under trees.

What is worrying is that two people complained to the Council, and they didn't fall about laughing but actually produced and erected that sign. It's the little things that waste the money.

A Tale of Some Stones

Oh, for the love of the deity of your choice, or none, read this:

An iconic set of stepping stones that appeared in Hollywood movie Robin Hood have been paved over by the council amid health and safety fears.

For centuries ramblers have crossed the River Dove in the Derbyshire Dales using the stepping stones, which have featured on postcards and calendars as an enduring image of an area visited by over a million people each year.

But the famous spot has now become an ugly eyesore after the uniformly flat limestone blocks were placed on top of the stones to stop people slipping.

Yes, it's the Elfin Safety mafia again. Or is it? I used to work in that field (H&S, not Dovedale), and I think I can see what is going on here. The National Trust have, for whatever reason, asked the County Council to review the stones from a public safety viewpoint - not an unreasonable request for a public body. The Council have determined that there is a significant risk of someone falling off the stones and spraining an ankle (not drowning in the river, as some of the commenters seem to assume). And here is the crunch: it's not, as so many think, a case of taking action to prevent people hurting themselves. It's action to remove a significant exposure of the Council to liability claims. And it has probably been insisted on by the Council's insurers, who would have to stand the cost of any claim for damages that was brought against the Council. That would increase the Council's insurance costs, and who pays for that? Ultimately, the Council's actions are taken to prevent ratepayers' money being channelled to the careless, the grasping and the greedy. And, as a ratepayer, I can't argue with that.

But it's wrong.

There was a time when people were expected to look out for themselves, to take care when they did things, and to shoulder the consequences of their own foolishness or lack of foresight. In those days, the Council would have said "Bugger off, those stones are pretty and they are staying as they are". But now, anyone experiencing the slightest misfortune finds a friendly solicitor who will bring a case for them, no-win-no-fee, on the basis that IT MUST BE SOMEBODY ELSE'S FAULT. And they are likely to win. In many cases, the courts will find in favour of the 'ordinary person' against the large organisation, be it a business or a local authority, despite evidence of the person's carelessness. All they have to do is demonstrate that the place was not inspected recently (define 'recently'), or that 'reasonable' steps had not been taken to remove any risk identified (define 'reasonable', ha ha), and they have a clear case of negligence. In minor cases (say, under £3000) the authority is unlikely to defend the case, as defending it is more expensive than fighting it, even if they win. And the greedy and the grasping walk out with their pockets bursting with fivers.

And that's wrong too.

The result is that businesses and authorities are doing ludicrous things to protect their shareholders/taxpayers from this kind of action. Think of the bag of peanuts that says "Warning: may contain nuts". Think of the headteacher banning conkers in the playground. Think of the lorry driver who has to wear a hi-vis vest at all times, even when alone in the cab. We are all terrified of legal action - which is likely to be successful, remember.

Whatever, the result is the vandalism of capping a set of lovely, time-worn stepping stones with spirit-level-flat blocks, and it's a damn shame. I have walked across these stones myself, and they are (sorry, were) pretty and picturesque in the way that old, random, worn things often are. Nature's patina. And now, they are level and uniform and, possibly, safer, although that will remain unclear for a while*.

But the problem isn't really one of Health and Safety Gorn Mad Again. It's one of a legal system that will choose to find in favour of complainants far too often, and for the flimsiest of reasons. And behind it is a society that increasingly believes that nothing bad should ever happen to anyone, and that businesses and corporations are intrinsically evil and should be made to pay. Big babies, in other words, who cry to Nursie every time they stub a toe.

So, in our Brave New World, we turn this:



into this:



What a shame.

(*One final thought: limestone, when exposed to rain and light, gets incredibly slippery. One of the strange things about potholing is finding that the limestone you are climbing on is as grippy as fresh tarmac - no daylight, no algae, no slips. Perhaps they should have covered the new slabs with that sandpapery stuff they put on wheelchair ramps just to be sure?)

English speakers not required

There is a huge fuss (mainly in the Daily Mail, for whom 'huge fuss' is the default setting) about the decision of a firm in East Anglia to employ only Polish speakers:

British workers have been turned away from jobs in a local factory – for not speaking Polish.

Cooked meat manufacturer Forza AW effectively barred anyone but Poles for applying for jobs on its production line in East Anglia by insisting all staff speak the language fluently.

This is manna from heaven for the 'forriners taking all our jobs' brigade. It certainly does look, from a social point of view, that a tipping-point has been reached, where it is more efficient for an employer to conduct all of his workplace business in a foreign language because he has so few native-born workers.

It's only a problem if you assume that everyone has the right to work wherever they like, regardless of the needs of employers to run profitable businesses. If it suits Forza AW to employ only Polish speakers, why shouldn't they have the right to do so?

I would go further. If they want to employ only women, or only men, or only people under the age of 30, or only people with blue eyes, why shouldn't they? It's their business, and it should be no concern of anyone else who they choose to employ. If you don't like it, set up your own business and employ your favoured group yourself.

No-one has the 'right' to a job where they please. You must have a skill-set that someone wants to exchange for a wage, and if the employers local to you want a skill-set you haven't got, then either acquire the skills, or move somewhere else.

If I lived in East Anglia and I wanted a job packing sausages, I would be learning Polish fast.

Footnote: a spokesman for the Government's Equalities Office said "Under the 1976 Race Relations Act, unless there is a genuine need for a worker to speak a particular language it is against the law to require that they should do so as a condition of employing them." The company seem to have the British mindset pretty well sussed, as they respond with a trump card: "you have to be fluent because the health and safety training is all done in Polish.’

One-nil.

Accidents happen

A small boy is swinging on a rail in a supermarket. He falls off and bangs his head. Sadly, he dies as a result.

Now that is a very unfortunate occurrence, but it's the kind of thing that happens from time to time. It's called an accident. Small children do this kind of thing, and sometimes the consequences are serious. But these days, we need someone to blame for everything that happens. Some might say that the mother of the child, who was shopping only a few feet away, should have kept him under better control, and is to blame for his death. I don't think that is necessarily true. Possibly the child was acting in a dangerous way and she should have stopped him. Possibly he was just fooling around like kids do, and she turned away for a few seconds. We don't know.

But the parents are taking legal action against the supermarket. Quite how they think the supermarket is to blame I don't know. No doubt there is a no-win-no-fee lawyer somewhere who has told them that they could make a few grand out of this. Those who know me will know that I work in this field - at the receiving end. I work for a large travel and tourism company, and we have thousands of members of the public on our premises throughout the year. With depressing regularity, I receive letters from solicitors claiming that their clients have hurt themselves while on the premises and therefore are due huge amounts of compo. Even falling over a piece of gravel has been presented as the result of a huge, careless corporation toying with the health and well-being of poor, helpless victims. It's a farce.

I doubt if the action will be successful. All the supermarket has to do is to demonstrate that the railing was properly installed and not faulty at the time of the accident, and that there was no hidden danger that the parents could not have foreseen. What I find distressing is that we seem to be turning into a nation of infants. If anything goes wrong, someone else must be to blame. The rather adult concept of taking responsibility for your own actions (and your children's) seems to have vaporised.

The family and the solicitor representing them are from Liverpool, a city that seems to have raised victimhood to an art form. The solicitor has said "This is a working class neighbourhood with lots of children. We say that parents should be able to go shopping with their children in a safe environment." If a simple metal rail constitutes an unsafe environment, I would love to know how he would design a shop to be safe.

Love it

My own feelings exactly when putting these silly things up in our workplace.

Via Dizzy.

Killed by a safety precaution?

This is a very sad story.

A teenager on her way to collect her GCSE results was killed after she was knocked down by a council refuse lorry without a reverse warning alarm, an inquest heard today.

Esther Bush, 16, died after walking behind the 7.5-ton flat bed truck and into the driver’s blindspot as he was reversing.

Without wishing to add to anyone's grief, it did occur to me to wonder if the reversing alarm had caused the girl's tragic death. Not the alarm which was not fitted to the lorry in question, but the millions that are fitted to others. We get so used to hearing that annoying bleep-bleep-bleep whenever a large vehicle is manoeuvering, that the two become linked in our minds. Could Esther have been thinking "that lorry isn't bleeping, so it's safe to walk behind it"? Equally, could the driver have been thinking "lorries have reversing bleepers, so no-one will be walking behind me"? He might have been wrong in this case, but it's not a hard mistake to make.

Sometimes, 'safety' features can have the opposite of the desired effect. Seat-belts in cars, for example - they reduce injuries to car occupants, but transfer the carnage to pedestrians and cyclists as drivers compensate for the additional feeling of safety they now have.

The world would be a safer place, and accidents like this one less likely, if people had to think things through, instead of relying on 'safety' equipment that is often anything but. If Esther had had to check and see if it was safe to walk where she did, would she have decided differently? We'll never know, but I have a concern that future generations are not learning to assess risks and act on their assessment. They grow up learning that things have warning signals, or barrier fences, or blunt edges, or safety cut-outs, and that nothing is ever dangerous - and if you get hurt, it's always someone else's fault.