May the woof be with you.

 

Fen Beagle’s latest. Go look.

All-a-din!

Time for the adverts.

All you need to know about Leg wax, bacon, insurance and how to avoid that parking ticket.

The City

 

elf and safety

When I was but a callow youth starting out on a career as a marine engineer, it was always instilled in us that Health and our safety was a personal responsibility. If you tripped over a ring bolt on the deck, it was your fault for not looking where you were going. Or if people were working aloft, just avoid the area below in case they dropped something. Believe it or not it worked. Everyone watched their personal space as a matter of course.

The huge detrimental change was when the P & O vessel, the Herald of Free Enterprise capsized outside the harbour of Zeebrugge. (Spookily enough I was in a lecture at HMS Phoenix discussing free surface effect on stability at the time when the news broke in the media).
Of course the MSM stirred it up with “Something must be done” and the government of the time rushed through ill thought-out legislation, to make health and safety a corporate responsibility. IE they wanted to hang someone out to dry.
Over the years afterwards I saw a change in the safety culture. The younger generation were slowly persuaded that they were invulnerable from harm, because the “Law said so”. People just assumed they were automatically safe.

Everyone was issued with every last item of safety equipment that could be invented. Courses that you were expected to attend proliferated at considerable cost to employers. The manufacturers of safety signs must have rubbed their hands with glee. Whereas in the past the only sign you would see was "Danger, Engineroom" this was not considered sufficient in the new artificial safety conscious age. Consequently an engine room door is covered by every sticker for every hazard imaginable. "Wear safety helmet", "inflammable  liquids", "danger of death", and many more. As well meaning as the powers that be are trying to protect their trained staff from danger, unwittingly in my view is that they have manufactured another monster. The monster of signage overload. It becomes impossible for the human brain to take in the riot of colour and wording presented.

Would not a single sign saying "Dangerous area, think about your safety", work better? Especially as I stated earlier in this post, that before the law was changed, we oldies were taught to think personal safety.

All this corporate responsibility nonsense has given us, is burgeoning industry of ambulance chasing law firms out to make a fortune from the inadequacy of the feckless idiots that don't think for themselves.

One advert for one of these scumsucking firms starts out with "I was given the wrong sort of ladder.........". If the man in question couldn't see that he would be using the wrong ladder he should have been presented with the words "You're fired. Bugger off".

Another one was "I was walking across the office when I slipped in some water....." I would have stood over and said " Next time you dozy cow, look where you're going in future" 

At the end of the day my opinion is that this change in the way we approach safety now, has had the opposite effect to what our lawmakers thought they would achieve. It has made the individual less safe.

I’m wining again.

No that’s not a typo.

 

The Good and the bad

First comes the bad news:

I’ve been painting my daughters kitchen and will have to finish it off tomorrow.

Then comes the really, really, really,really GOOD news.

My son was diagnosed with cancer of the Thyroid eighteen months ago.

He has had two courses of radiotherapy since then. Today he went for a scan to see if the cancerous cells were still in evidence.

He has now been declared cancer free.

The law of unintended consequences  will probably kick in though. He’s celebrating in the pub at this moment. I’m dreading the phone call in the early hours telling me that he staggered off the pavement into the path of a truck.

I am alone

 

Sunday sermon

 

Well, it made I larf.

Those words I hated………

on joining a ship. “You’re in charge of the Fire and repair party”.

Now the fire and repair party (FRP) usually consists of twenty or more men or women of a variety of specialisations. Deck, engineering, catering, electrical, etc.

Of course I’m in charge of this motley cru (sic) and have to work out who is going to do what.

I have a junior officer as my number two and general dogsbody.

There is usually an officer from the catering department who is delegated to maintain the incident board, marking up on the wall mounted plans of the ship, the incidents as they occur. The incidents can range from fire and flood, to chemical hazards or radioactive contamination. (I don’t like the last two. They usually mean that I’m going to die a nasty death).

Fire is the most likely  scenario. Naturally a thousand miles from land and  dialling 999 does not get a response from the fire brigade. Ergo, we must fight fires ourselves.

To that end I have to form two five man firefighting teams. The problem is that all I have is a list of names. So I pencil in the names of the people against the duties that they will do. Simples.

Before I go on, I’ll just give you a run down on a five man team. All five are to be dressed in full fire protective suits and Breathing apparatus. each member will have a specific duty.

No.1 is the water wall number whose job is to be slightly in front, operating his hose in a circular spray to protect the team from the heat and flames.

No’2 is the fire-fighter who has his hose in ragged spray mode to actually fight the fire.

No.3 is the team commander who is slightly behind the front two and is surveying the situation with his thermal imaging camera (TIC).

No’4 is the hose handler.

No.5 is the ship protector who’s job is to seal the doorway to protect the ship to prevent the spread of fire into the rest of the ship.

Now comes the crunch. I’ve put names to the duties so everything is fine. NOT.

No’1 is a gay steward (Lovely chap) who suffers from claustrophobia.

No.2 is a female who is 5’ 2, who when turning on her hose is instantly bowled over backwards by the force.

No3, the team leader is afflicted with a stutter and is unable to communicate with the rest of the team over the radio.

No.4 is morbidly obese and struggles to carry his own wait let alone two fully charges hoses.

No.5 is no problem. Anyone can sit in a doorway watching the rainbows glistening off his water wall..

These are the problems when you have names and not faces. It doesn’t help that you usually have half a dozen of the FRP who make any excuse as to why they they should be exempt from a particular duty. “I’ve got gout, a rash, don’t know how to use the BA (Rubbish. You have to have done the course to even be there)”. Of course they don’t have a leg to stand on when I state that they wouldn’t be there without their yearly medical check up being passed.

This is a bit of a moan. However it is satisfying when it works. For some reason the majority of fires I’ve had to contend with have been at night. In every instance I’ve been amazed at the speed my teams have mustered, dressed and put the fires out.

Just goes to show, that with a little planning the system works.

The best fire-fighter I’ve ever had was actually a 5’ 3 inch, female cook, shaped like a beach ball, with a tenacity that was second to none. I would have made her team leader. However she couldn’t see over the two firefighters in front of her.

The only good thing about these drills is they are usually held towards the end of the working day. The upside is that TFE can rush off, have a shower, and get into the bar early.

Every story has a happy ending.

.

In praise of beer.