H & S Gone Mad!

Hi All

When I'm not in Handyman Mode, I earn about 20% of my income performing as a close up magician. Card tricks, coins, bits of rope, cups & balls etc.

Just back from a gig in central London for a corporate party. When I arrived I was asked if I had prepared a Risk Assessment Statement for my performance!

Paper cuts from playing cards? Sharp scissors for cutting rope? I suppose someone could die of shock when their signed card appears in my wallet - but I doubt it.

I explained this to the nerd who asked and he reluctantly agreed that maybe I was right & let me carry on.

The world has gone completely mad. Heaven knows what hoops contractors have to go through.

Reply to
The Medway Handyman
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You should have asked him if he'd done his Risk Assessment Statements, one for asking you to perform and one for asking for your Risk Assessment Statement.

Buy yourself a small piece of lava (very cheap) or pick up a piece from you local volcano (Teneriffe etc). Whenever you are asked about risk show this piece of lava and explain that it is a meteorite that just fell and hit the ground 2 feet in front of you.

Reply to
Paul Herber

With location TV you have to provide a risk assessment for anywhere where members of the public are present. But you can put something like 'no risks foreseen'. It's probably just to show at least some thought has gone into it.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

If I saw that on a call sheet it would show that *no* thought had gone into it. No mention of trailing cables, generators/power supplies, public/crowds, vehicle movements and many others?

I'm not a great fan of Risk Assements, they tend to be more box ticking and arse covering excercises than anything else. But just occasionally something pops up that makes people aware of a hazard, provided the read the RA...

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Some years ago I was H&S advisor in one of our well known companies, and responsible for ensuring that H&S was applied in a sensible and cost-effective manner. At my own site we were inspected under the Factory Inspector system, and I always found these inspectors knowledgeable and reasonable in their attitude to a wide range of safety matters. Things were very different at one of our subsidiary sites where it was purely an office environment where training manuals etc. were written for our defence equipment. Here the inspection was carried out by the local authority employees, and nit-picking was the order of the day. Give me real factory inspectors any time! Perhaps I was seeing the first examples of our "nanny state" in action.

Reply to
Malcolm Stewart

When I do candlemaking with schoolchildren I'm asked for a risk assessment by the council.

I tell them that there's a risk of severe burns or death from hot beeswax, that there's a risk of severe burns or death from lighted candles, that there are only two of us in charge of a class.

I don't think they ever read these things because no-one's ever challenged me or said I can't do it.

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

That is not a risk assessment. It is a list of risks. What do you list as precautions you are taking to minimise the risks? You wouldn't get the go ahead if you gave that to me.

Reply to
dennis

What do you expect where assaulting a policeman or mugging will carry a spot fine of up to £100?

I can see the mugger opening his bag of swag and counting out £100 and saying that he had three successful other muggings so it was a good days work.

Reply to
EricP

The message from "Dave Liquorice" contains these words:

We have ground water seeping up through the tarmac into an area where the kids keep their bikes at the junior school. We're considering turning it into a bog-garden 'cos there's no way we're going to be able to stop it as it's happening on the boundary between porous subsoil and clay. In effect a springline.

Reply to
Guy King

|On Sat, 30 Sep 2006 22:44:17 GMT, "The Medway Handyman" | wrote: | |>Hi All |>

|>When I'm not in Handyman Mode, I earn about 20% of my income performing as a |>close up magician. Card tricks, coins, bits of rope, cups & balls etc. |>

|>Just back from a gig in central London for a corporate party. When I |>arrived I was asked if I had prepared a Risk Assessment Statement for my |>performance! |>

|>Paper cuts from playing cards? Sharp scissors for cutting rope? I suppose |>someone could die of shock when their signed card appears in my wallet - but |>I doubt it. |>

|>I explained this to the nerd who asked and he reluctantly agreed that maybe |>I was right & let me carry on. |>

|>The world has gone completely mad. Heaven knows what hoops contractors have |>to go through. | |What do you expect where assaulting a policeman or mugging will carry |a spot fine of up to ?100? | |I can see the mugger opening his bag of swag and counting out ?100 and |saying that he had three successful other muggings so it was a good |days work.

You forget that the policeman can pass the case up to the Magistrates Court who can pass the case up to the Crown Court.

Reply to
Dave Fawthrop

|Hi All | |When I'm not in Handyman Mode, I earn about 20% of my income performing as a |close up magician. Card tricks, coins, bits of rope, cups & balls etc. | |Just back from a gig in central London for a corporate party. When I |arrived I was asked if I had prepared a Risk Assessment Statement for my |performance! | |Paper cuts from playing cards? Sharp scissors for cutting rope? I suppose |someone could die of shock when their signed card appears in my wallet - but |I doubt it. | |I explained this to the nerd who asked and he reluctantly agreed that maybe |I was right & let me carry on. | |The world has gone completely mad. Heaven knows what hoops contractors have |to go through.

How about writing a Risk Assessment like. "There is a risk that someone might *believe* in the tricks I perform, and I do my best to maximise this risk. Unfortunately there is always someone in the peer group who insists that it is all done by slight of hand."

Reply to
Dave Fawthrop

Bets, please: how long before householders, sorry, 'responsible persons', have to produce one annually, copies to be appended to the Sale Pack, provided to visitors etc.?

Reply to
Joe

Put the "sawing the woamn in half" trick on you repetoire. It'll make the risk assessment a laugh.

Actually as handyman and magician, you're well qualified.

Reply to
dom

You've forgotten slipping on wax spilt on the floor, anaphylactic reaction to beeswax, gangrene from tying a length of wick too tightly round a finger, and psychological trauma from seeing a candle which in the eyes of a social worker probably looks something like a phallus.

Owain

Reply to
Owain

It would have been long and boring if I'd said here everything I put on the form :-)

That's irrelevant here, Of course I put it on the form.

They ask me to do it, I've never offered. I have a good reputation, it seems.

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

On Sun, 01 Oct 2006 16:18:47 +0100 someone who may be Owain wrote this:-

No doubt the social worker would consider that Mary is depraved and is depraving the children. Lock her up at once. Think of the children.

Reply to
David Hansen

"Malcolm Stewart" wrote in message news:451fc958$0$19744$ snipped-for-privacy@free.teranews.com... ...

The Factory Inspector with a strong practical knowledge is IME a thing of the past. The last few I've had through seemed only to know what they had read in books.

Colin Bignell

Reply to
nightjar

As the law requires that you should, but you are under no obligation to record assessments that do not produce an identifiable risk. Therefore, assuming you really have thought about the possible risks involved, rather than simply assuming there are none, it would be quite acceptable to answer that you have carried out a risk assessment and found no identifiable risks. Of course, few H&S professionals are actually likely to believe that - I've known someone incur a reportable injury (he was off work for a week) by simply picking up a piece of paper.

Colin Bignell

Reply to
nightjar

Oh well, my mum was a factory inspector until sometime around 1960, I think. Her area was Kingston upon Thames. She had to deal with a number of nasty accidents in tanneries, of which there were several on her patch. A common accident in those days was to lose a hand in the hot pressure rollers used to flatten leather hides, and in some cases the other hand too in the effort to get the first hand out. One case of this was a young lad who was working there as a summer job, before taking up his scholarship at Oxford to study piano. Building sites were another bad area in those days.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

I mention that too!

Never heard of an incidence of that ...

Never thought of that - thanks!

Ooh, that's an idea. Mind you, I wouldn't fancy experienceing a phallus like a dipped candle ... a bit too pointy for my liking.

Do social workers suffer from psychological trauma ?

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

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