Just switched on to see the guy demonstrating a hampster cage 'tumble drier' being warmed by a bunsen burner. Did he *really* need the storm-trooper head and face face protection and the full gauntlet welding gloves?. Anyone ever wonder why we seem to be becoming a nation of girly-girlies?. regards john
Studio and Personal Insurance Policies are turning the world into a legal mine field. If you ever seen the programs were John Noakes (Blue Peter) gets his foot stood on by an baby elephant or Richard Whitley (Countdown) having his index finger bitten through by a weasel (or ferret), then you'll understand why today they have to wear to gloves and steel toed footwear when in contact with animals.
There is also the fact of one presenter nearly being gassed by a faulty burner in set decoration and the one who fell thirty feet when describing how weather vanes work.
Bring back the good old days of Television, Eh ?. :-))
In message , John Jardine writes
Not me mate - I had a shower in hydrofluoric acid tonight, ... without goggles
girly-girlies?.
Too true about the liability aspect. For me though, they instantly lose any credibility as a provider of valid information. On the other hand and other channel, it's dead easy to relate to Fred Dibnah and his H+S nightmare of a workshop. Maybe best to treat 'em as 'consumables'. They can then use their artistic presentation skills to enhance dire experiments, such as the effect of putting a lead weight in their ear. :) regards john
Missed that.
Because if he didn't and someone copied it at home and injured themselevs them they could probably sue the TV company because they failed to give good safety advice.
The Sex Discrimination Act 1975?
Bet you kept your shreddies on though :-)
(Countdown)
ROFL !!!!
His workshop was the epitome of safety compared to the way he installed his quipment at the top of a 200' chimney. Enough to give any self-respecting HSE Official palpitations.
And you think a self-respecting HSE official is going up there to check it out?
One thing about Dibnah is that the guy is clearly not phased by heights (understatement of the year award awaited....).
Andrew
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When I was a wet-behind-the-ears young electrical engineer, I started by supervising two or three line gangs. Imagine my surprise and horror to come upon one gang on a bright summer's day where one of the linesmen was doing a headstand on a 6" wide steel crossarm fitted to the top of an 'H' pole (two poles at 6ft centres) some 30 odd feet in the air. No belts, no ropes, no nothing! A definite tightening of the sphincter that day......
I'd like to see one of them officials go up there to check his work, lol.
Regards, NT
But did you see the "bringing back the old machines" or whatever it was called the other night on ITV? They built an enourmous hampster wheel and put a couple of men inside it to drive a giant crane they'd built out of green oak.
OK, they did wear ear defenders (damn noisy these hampster wheels apparently) but did you see them hoisting it up? They were just about able to get it up and in danger of it toppling. Had it been filmed in England i'm sure someone whould have insisted on them bringing in 21st century hydraulics, but this was France, so nothing more than a shrug of the shoulders was given!
Decidedly iffy. I wondered whether they actually did do it or whether it was fiddled, with some creative editing to make it look as though it all worked.
A tightening of the sphincter? I have a feeling mine would have been an instant loosening..... ;)
Andrew
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A pal of mine was walking along the street with a posture that looked like a near sitting position. I asked what he'd done and said he was desperate to go to the loo. If you are that desperate to go to the loo, you'd be walking with straight back and legs and buttocks clenched together very tightly, I said. I might walk like that when I've finished, he replied.
I didn't mean that the equipment (i.e. his working deck) was unsafe once constructed, I meant the way he went about constructing it; his mate on the ground hauling scaffolding planks up with a rope and pulley and Fred manhandling them into place with one hand whilst hanging onto the ladder with the other.
In one of the early programmes he recounted a tale of some curious onlooker coming up to his mate on the ground (Gordon?) and asking if Fred had ever fallen off a chimney. His mate replied, "he did once, but fortunately I managed to catch him".
I recall a clip of one of the programmes where he was up a steeple being used on a BBC safety course as an example of how not to make telly. It was exiting stuff watching scaffolding etc being hauled up a rather makeshift ladder arrangement but the safety lecturer's point was that the cameraman had to climb up it before filming how unstable it all was!
Peter
The funniest clip I remember of Fred Dibnah was when he knocked a small hole in the bottom of a chimney and lit a fire (one very effective way of bringing down a chimney - in the old days they used to do much the same thing to the corner of a fort).
Anyway, fire was going strong and Dibnah was in front of the camera. All of a sudden the chimney (a tall one) started collapsing in his general direction. Next few seconds we see Dibnah trying to compete with Lynford Christie......
So funny!
Andrew
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I was most impressed by the chisels that had very similar proportions to an old fashioned domestic coal shovel (don't see one of them very often these days!) and as for the mallet they were thumping it with! Looked like a beer keg on a stick! ;O)
Seriously looking forward to the rest of the series!
Take Care, Gnube {too thick for linux}
Personally, I'm simply trying to cut down on the damn silly stuff I know I can get up to on the odd occasion, but yeah, some of it can get a bit stifling sometimes when taken to the lunatic extremes, and doing that seems to be on the increase!
Take Care, Gnube {too thick for linux}
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