PC RANT

[Sandy Morton]

Hi

RANT ON>

About a month ago I was asked by the BBC to provide hire cycles for a
family day out on Cumbrae. Programme was Cbeebies.

I was phoned this morning, day of the hire, by the researcher to say
that the person in London in carge of health and safety would not
allow children to cycle on the public roads.

How pc is this - kids would have had a great day out - adults would
have been comfortable - and - some mindless unthinking moron with no
knowledge of the situation interferes.

Helmets (sorry) would have been provided foc and the cycles would
have been in A1 condition.

I hate the stupid little mindless morons who try and appear to
succede in running our lives.

Auntie had previously arranged ukp15 million indemnity insurance -
what a waste of money.

As you will no doubt gather I am NOT a happy easter bunny!

RANT OFF BUT NOT OVER<

--
A T (Sandy) Morton
on the Bicycle Island
In the Global Village
http://www.millport.net

 

[James Annan]

Sandy Morton wrote:
> Hi
>
> RANT ON>
>
> About a month ago I was asked by the BBC to provide hire cycles for a
> family day out on Cumbrae. Programme was Cbeebies.
>
> I was phoned this morning, day of the hire, by the researcher to say
> that the person in London in carge of health and safety would not
> allow children to cycle on the public roads.
>
> How pc is this - kids would have had a great day out - adults would
> have been comfortable - and - some mindless unthinking moron with no
> knowledge of the situation interferes.

Sorry to hear about that. Not sure it is really "PC", more just plain
stupid.

James

 

[Tony Raven]

Sandy Morton wrote:
>
> I was phoned this morning, day of the hire, by the researcher to say
> that the person in London in carge of health and safety would not
> allow children to cycle on the public roads.
>

Yet they routinely let their reporters drive while talking to camera

Tony

 

[John Hearns]

On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 00:45:10 +0100, Sandy Morton wrote:

> Hi
>
> RANT ON>
>
> About a month ago I was asked by the BBC to provide hire cycles for a
> family day out on Cumbrae. Programme was Cbeebies.
>
> I was phoned this morning, day of the hire, by the researcher to say
> that the person in London in carge of health and safety would not
> allow children to cycle on the public roads.
>
What a twit.

Remember the local BBC London programme had the presenter taking lessons
from a Cycletraining instructor and cycling round Hyde Park Corner
recently.


> How pc is this - kids would have had a great day out - adults would
> have been comfortable - and - some mindless unthinking moron with no
> knowledge of the situation interferes.
I agree - where does this end?
It would make perfect sense to object to children riding along (say)
the A2 out of London or (in a Scottish context) the A9.
But a pootle round the island?

Where does it end then?
Children go horse-riding on the roads. I bet if said London person had a
daughter who wanted riding lessons she would be allowed them.

 

[Tony W]

"Sandy Morton" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Hi
>
> RANT ON>
>
> About a month ago I was asked by the BBC to provide hire cycles for a
> family day out on Cumbrae. Programme was Cbeebies.
>
> I was phoned this morning, day of the hire, by the researcher to say
> that the person in London in carge of health and safety would not
> allow children to cycle on the public roads.
>
> How pc is this - kids would have had a great day out - adults would
> have been comfortable - and - some mindless unthinking moron with no
> knowledge of the situation interferes.
>
> Helmets (sorry) would have been provided foc and the cycles would
> have been in A1 condition.
>
> I hate the stupid little mindless morons who try and appear to
> succede in running our lives.
>
> Auntie had previously arranged ukp15 million indemnity insurance -
> what a waste of money.
>
> As you will no doubt gather I am NOT a happy easter bunny!
>
> RANT OFF BUT NOT OVER<

Surely in the same time as various BBC H&S nazis had consulted with their
lawyers, their insurance company lawyers, their lawyer's H&S nazis, their
insurance company's H&S nazis, BsHIT, BsHIT's lawyers, BsHIT's H&S nazis,
some luvvies in the pub, the luvvies' agents, lawyers and H&S nazis, Jeremy
Clarkson etc. they could have phoned round every chav, petrol-head & plonker
on the island (of whom I presume there are few) and paid them to stay off
the roads that day.

I have not having visited Great Cumbrae but if it is similar to most of the
islands I have visited round the world of a similar size the danger from
traffic comprises the five minutes after the ferry docks, the 10 minutes
before it sails and Saturday night when some booze fuelled chav thinks he is
Schumacher on a promise.

Pillocks.

Hope you charged them double for late cancellation.

T

 

[Simon Brooke]

in message <[email protected]>, Sandy Morton
('[email protected]') wrote:

> Hi
>
> RANT ON>
>
> About a month ago I was asked by the BBC to provide hire cycles for a
> family day out on Cumbrae. Programme was Cbeebies.
>
> I was phoned this morning, day of the hire, by the researcher to say
> that the person in London in carge of health and safety would not
> allow children to cycle on the public roads.
>
> How pc is this - kids would have had a great day out - adults would
> have been comfortable - and - some mindless unthinking moron with no
> knowledge of the situation interferes.

OK, Sandy, to whom do we write (politely) to express our dismay?

--
[email protected] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

my other car is #<Subr-Car: #5d480>
;; This joke is not funny in emacs.

 

[vernon levy]

> RANT ON>

> I was phoned this morning, day of the hire, by the researcher to say
> that the person in London in carge of health and safety would not
> allow children to cycle on the public roads.
>
> How pc is this - kids would have had a great day out - adults would
> have been comfortable - and - some mindless unthinking moron with no
> knowledge of the situation interferes.
>
> RANT OFF BUT NOT OVER<

<PEDANT>

It's not political correctness to blame. In this litigious age, it's risk
aversion that's to blame for the pulling of the plug on what should have
been an enjoyable day for all concerned.

</PEDANT>

Sadly H&S officers seem to be devoid of commonsense, a sense of proprtion
and
true risk.

You wouldn't want to get involved in taking a school trip abroad, after many
revisions
my compulsory risk assessment was five pages long and had to cover mundane
things
like getting on and off the coach, coping with travel sickness, kids getting
lost, storage
and dispensation of medication for pre-existing alments of kids...the list
went on and on

No matter how well planned and comprehensive a risk assessment is, it
affords little
protection against the truly unexpected and the determined plaintiff.

H&S regulations took the enjoyment out of science teaching and I changed to
ICT
teaching after seing science reduced to 'painting by numbers' with few
opportunities
to digress into the 'fun areas' e.g. bangs, flashes and smells.

So, coming back to the BBC, you know have an explanation for their behaviour
but
not, in my opinion, a justification.

 

[John Hearns]

On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 09:26:58 +0100, Simon Brooke wrote:

>
> OK, Sandy, to whom do we write (politely) to express our dismay?

Miss Hoolie
The Nursery
Balamory



Or maybe Josie Jump, as she would be organising the ride.

 

[Richard]

vernon levy wrote:
> It's not political correctness to blame. In this litigious age, it's risk
> aversion that's to blame for the pulling of the plug on what should have
> been an enjoyable day for all concerned.
>
> Sadly H&S officers seem to be devoid of commonsense, a sense of proprtion
> and
> true risk.

True, but not the entire picture.

A theatre I know has an orchestra pit, which can (and usually is)
boarded over (with heavy sections of staging) to increase the size of
the stage. One day, with the theatre closed, the stage crew was
unboarding the pit to prepare for a performance. One of the crew
assisted in moving the first section of staging to a storage area,
returned to the stage (now with a big hole in it) and promptly fell into
the pit, hurting himself quite seriously. He sued the theatre owners
for negligence and was successful, because there was no safety barrier
around the section of pit that he'd just uncovered a couple of minutes
beforehand. The owners were fined several thousand pounds.

It's incidents like this that force H&S officers to be over the top when
it comes to a sense of proportion.

Wouldn't it be nice if (almost) everyone, at age 18, signed a form
stating "I am an adult and take responsibility for my own actions"?

R.

 

[Nick Kew]

vernon levy wrote:

> <PEDANT>
>
> It's not political correctness to blame. In this litigious age, it's risk
> aversion that's to blame for the pulling of the plug on what should have
> been an enjoyable day for all concerned.
>
> </PEDANT>

Indeed.

If you saw a toddler drowning in two foot of water, would you pull them
out? Common humanity makes the answer obvious. Self-preservation and
the risk of lawyers blighting your life - and maybe costing you things
like your job and house[1] - tells you the opposite answer.

[1] That is NOT exaggeration. I might have added family there, but
(unlike job and house) I have no firm, real-life evidence of that.

--
Nick Kew

 

[[email protected]]

Sandy,

Get onto Roger Geffen at the CTC about this, they may well be able to
make something of it.

This is about as biased and ridiculous as they way the BBC 'holiday'
program will show people going on '4x4 safari's without wearing seat
belts, or quad biking at high speed in some desert wearing only a
bandanna, and yet will instruct their presenters to tell people to take
cycle helmet with them to Amsterdam in case they want to hire a bike
as the Dutch don't wear them!

 

[wafflycat]

<[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Sandy,
>
> Get onto Roger Geffen at the CTC about this, they may well be able to
> make something of it.
>

A sensible suggestion.


> This is about as biased and ridiculous as they way the BBC 'holiday'
> program will show people going on '4x4 safari's without wearing seat
> belts, or quad biking at high speed in some desert wearing only a
> bandanna, and yet will instruct their presenters to tell people to take
> cycle helmet with them to Amsterdam in case they want to hire a bike
> as the Dutch don't wear them!
>

Perhaps if we have the contact details of the twit that made the decision to
drop the incredibly dangerous cycling, we can remind him of all the things
we see on the BBC that he/she should be banning on H&S grounds in the light
of this *stupid* decision???

Cheers, helen s

 

[Ross Hamilton]

On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 11:45:11 +0100, wafflycat wrote in
<[email protected]>, seen in uk.rec.cycling:

[...]
> Perhaps if we have the contact details of the twit that made the decision to
> drop the incredibly dangerous cycling, we can remind him of all the things
> we see on the BBC that he/she should be banning on H&S grounds in the light
> of this *stupid* decision???

That is a very good idea. Swamp the bugger with evidence of all the
dangerous stuff to which a blind eye is turned.

--
Ross, in Lincoln
Reply-to address will bounce; replace "junk-trap" with "me" for e-mail

 

[David Martin]

On 30/3/05 9:41 am, in article [email protected], "vernon
levy" <[email protected]> wrote:

> H&S regulations took the enjoyment out of science teaching and I changed to
> ICT
> teaching after seing science reduced to 'painting by numbers' with few
> opportunities
> to digress into the 'fun areas' e.g. bangs, flashes and smells.

And the government wonder why we aren't getting enough kids doing science?
It's hardly rocket science..

...d

 

[Peter Clinch]

David Martin wrote:

> And the government wonder why we aren't getting enough kids doing science?
> It's hardly rocket science..

Roos has pointed out to me that rocket science isn't exactly, ummmm,
rocket science... ;-/ After some thought, I think it's rocket
/engineering/ that's the trick stuff!

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email protected] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

 

[Richard]

David Martin wrote:

> And the government wonder why we aren't getting enough kids doing science?
> It's hardly rocket science..

Rocket science isn't really very hard, it's just solving a few
differential equations, running the odd Monte Carlo simulations, and a
bit of first principles engineering. It's the quantum theory and black
holes stuff that some of my colleagues are doing that really is tricky.
You can't even get straight answers to simple questions from them.

R.

 

[JLB]

James Annan wrote:
> Sandy Morton wrote:
>
>>Hi
>>
>>RANT ON>
>>
>>About a month ago I was asked by the BBC to provide hire cycles for a
>>family day out on Cumbrae. Programme was Cbeebies.
>>
>>I was phoned this morning, day of the hire, by the researcher to say
>>that the person in London in carge of health and safety would not
>>allow children to cycle on the public roads.
>>
>>How pc is this - kids would have had a great day out - adults would
>>have been comfortable - and - some mindless unthinking moron with no
>>knowledge of the situation interferes.
>
>
> Sorry to hear about that. Not sure it is really "PC", more just plain
> stupid.

Like James said, not PC, just stupidity, perhaps combined with prejudice
and/or ignorance about cycling, and a large dose of timidity.

Reminds me of a pub discussion with cow-orkers a while ago when we tried
to work out what sort of animal a "manager" was. The answer was a
jellyfish: a brainless, heartless, gutless, spineless, useless lump
that just drifts with the flow sucking up nutrients; but capable of
causing a very unpleasant reaction if you got close.


--
Joe * If I cannot be free I'll be cheap

 

[Graham Dean]

"Richard" <[email protected]> wrote in
message news:[email protected]...
> David Martin wrote:
>
>> And the government wonder why we aren't getting enough kids doing
>> science?
>> It's hardly rocket science..
>
> Rocket science isn't really very hard, it's just solving a few
> differential equations, running the odd Monte Carlo simulations, and a bit
> of first principles engineering. It's the quantum theory and black holes
> stuff that some of my colleagues are doing that really is tricky. You
> can't even get straight answers to simple questions from them.
>
> R.

Quite - the old 'rocket science' isn't rocket science... - now rocket
engineering, there's a thing!

>You can't even get straight answers to simple questions from them.
Hmm............. - that'd be modern 'physics' then........

Graham

 

[Tony Raven]

Richard wrote:
>
> Rocket science isn't really very hard, it's just solving a few
> differential equations, running the odd Monte Carlo simulations, and a
> bit of first principles engineering.

....and then wondering why your Beagle has disappeared around the time
astronomers spotted a new crater on Mars.

Tony

 

[JLB]

vernon levy wrote:
>>RANT ON>
>
>
>>I was phoned this morning, day of the hire, by the researcher to say
>>that the person in London in carge of health and safety would not
>>allow children to cycle on the public roads.
>>
>>How pc is this - kids would have had a great day out - adults would
>>have been comfortable - and - some mindless unthinking moron with no
>>knowledge of the situation interferes.
>>
>>RANT OFF BUT NOT OVER<
>
>
> <PEDANT>
>
> It's not political correctness to blame. In this litigious age, it's risk
> aversion that's to blame for the pulling of the plug on what should have
> been an enjoyable day for all concerned.
>
http://www.hse.gov.uk/sensiblehealthandsafety/index.htm
> </PEDANT>
>
> Sadly H&S officers seem to be devoid of commonsense, a sense of proprtion
> and true risk.

Not quite sure who "H&S officers" are. I've met H&S consultants
(self-employed), H&S Inspectors (government regulators, either HSE or
local authority), H&S managers and H&S advisors working for various
companies and so on, but never so far as I know an H&S officer.
>
> You wouldn't want to get involved in taking a school trip abroad, after many
> revisions my compulsory risk assessment was five pages long and had to cover mundane
> things like getting on and off the coach, coping with travel sickness, kids getting
> lost, storage and dispensation of medication for pre-existing alments of kids...the list
> went on and on

http://www.hse.gov.uk/schooltrips/index.htm
>
> No matter how well planned and comprehensive a risk assessment is, it affords little
> protection against the truly unexpected and the determined plaintiff.

I'm not convinced about that. With a well planned and comprehensive RA
(that you follow) you can immediately demonstrate you made a serious
effort to do things properly; you were neither reckless nor careless.
This is a far better starting point for you than not having an RA when
one was required, which not only makes your civil case hard to defend
but puts you at risk of criminal prosecution. A well planned and
comprehensive RA must mean one that comes close to ruling out an
incident that is covered by the RA, even if it cannot guarantee no
problems. Therefore, what happened is either something obvious enough it
should have been included and your RA is not actually well planned and
comprehensive, or it's something not reasonably foreseeable so your RA
is fine.

I will not pretend that doing a RA is not tedious, or that they are
often used in a way that makes them either ineffective or pointlessly
onerous. The underlying idea is that people should think about what
could go wrong before they do things. Any experience of investigating
accidents suggests this is usually a good idea.

Another point sometimes forgotten is that reducing risk does not require
or imply putting a stop to the primary activity. Big circular saws can
be dangerous and so it is safer to have no circular saw, but if you run
a saw mill the starting point is that using circular saw is fundamental,
so you only have to show you are operating it properly. Similarly, if
the point of the trip is to take some children out on bikes, you should
not even begin thinking let's not go on bikes.
>
> H&S regulations took the enjoyment out of science teaching and I changed to
> ICT teaching after seing science reduced to 'painting by numbers' with few
> opportunities to digress into the 'fun areas' e.g. bangs, flashes and smells.
>
There has to be some balance. I enjoyed metalwork at school but I've got
doubts about the occasion (mid 1970's) when we were making things from
cast aluminium; one of my friends dropped a crucible of molten metal on
the concrete floor and, propelled by vapourised moisture from the floor,
the whole class, assembled to watch, was showered with drops of liquid
aluminium. Clothes smouldering, hair burning and an unfortunate few
clutching their faces while stumbling about screaming. Nobody was
blinded. Perhaps it's not worth trying to prevent such things. If you've
got children how would you feel?

> So, coming back to the BBC, you know have an explanation for their behaviour
> but not, in my opinion, a justification.



--
Joe * If I cannot be free I'll be cheap