Health and safety man is alive and living in France

Ian is still in France. He has been hampered by rain and a rather officious inspector from the SPANC who took one look at Warren's carefully placed plastic pipe leading from the end of the filter bed to the middle of the field, shook his head, wagged his finger and said 'interdit'! Negotiation and discussion was therefore out of the question and so Ian and Warren spent last week digging a trench for the run off, consisting of two further 30 metre drains running across the slope, sand, gravel, yet more pipe and two further inspection holes so that the man from the SPANC could look into them on Thursday and check that they were draining properly! This is in spite of the fact that our neighbours' fosse empties directly into the ground and runs off into the corner of our field filtered only by the grass and the soil. The slightly smelly puddle that collects a the top of the field has been ideal for growing the twisted willow tree we bought from England 18 months ago and is also popular with Sid the snake so we are not too bothered by it but annoyed by the 'health and safety man' mentality that has found its way into the French countryside! If the drains prove to be ineffective then we have to get the run-off from our filter bed pumped up to the ditch that runs off by the side of the road!

You can just see both features in this picture. Over to the right, just in front of the hedge is a lush green patch, which is our neighbour's run-off and at the end of the muddy trench leading away from the filter bed is the forbidden pipe exit!









David Cameron and his ConDemmed party have appointed Lord Young to investigate whether health and safety has 'gone mad'. I think it is probably the people implementing all these policies that have gone mad. Interestingly when Cameron first mentioned these ideas before the election the LibDems emphatically disagreed with him. Funny how madness spreads.

I expect my wages to be frozen after the budget on Tuesday. Apparently my 'perks' are also threatened but as I can't think of any perks that I have had then I can't see what they can do. Public sector pensions are waved around like a red flag by the likes of the Daily Mail as being a perk. Yes, I have a pension and I have paid 7% of my salary every month towards it for  20+ years. Even if I work until I am 70 I will never be able to accrue the 40 years necessary for a full pension. A full pension would give me half my salary on retirement. I will get about a quarter which, without going into too much detail with regards to my salary would give me a pension of about £10,000 per year. Not what I consider a perk after 30 years of public service! Anyway, it will shortly not be my concern as I formally handed in my notice on Monday!

Walking bus

A quick comment tonight as my mind is befuddled after a day of pointless meetings (I must invest in a hologram of myself for such occasions as I am never expected to actually say anything) and an hour and a half of French classes.

I got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning and driving to work came across the 'walking bus'. This is an admirable venture where groups of children congregate to all walk to school together in 'safety' with the company of some responsible adults. But.. why oh why do they have to make them all wear those high visibility jackets! Thirty children walking in line (and there can't be more than thirty or the group is not covered by their risk assessment) are easily spotted without the need for a fluorescent yellow uniform. My concern is that it turns the simple task of walking to school into a monumental lesson in health and safety nonsense equivalent to working on a three lane motorway, and ensures that children never learn how to assess the risk of walking along a road and crossing in traffic on the occasions when they don't have the walking bus with them! Whatever happened to walking to school with your mates like I did (and no, the world wasn't safer, and there weren't less paedophiles and although there were considerably less cars I'm not convinced that the driving was any safer!)

That's my moan for the day!

Wearing a hard-hat is better than having a hole in the head!

This is what Ian said today. We were cutting a very tall hedge. Ian was at the top of the ladder and I was at the bottom putting things in the shredder. Ian insisted that I wore the nice hard hat he bought me, I objected to the hat on aesthetic grounds but was over-ruled. (Ian wore a hat, visor and ear-protectors). I wonder if I am really going out with Health and Safety man!

I don't believe it!

Well, this needs no comment; bearing in mind that the plastic soap dish has no electric connections of any description. (Mind you, I suspect that someone might have been playing a bit of a joke!)