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Sign language: health and safety uber alles!
Monday March 17, 2008
If a country treats its citizens like naughty schoolchildren, that is exactly how they will behave, says Joe Jackson
My current concert tour began in the UK and, coming from my recently adopted home of Berlin, one of the things that struck me first about the land of my birth is the overwhelming, and maddening, prevalence of signs.
Foremost among these are NO SMOKING signs, of which there is a deluge. Placed at eye level right on the door of a pub, literally ‘in my face’, they’re an invitation not to “Come on in!” but to “Fuck off!”. Inside are dozens more, the idea, apparently, being that if I do a 360-degree turn, I should never lose sight of one.
Not happy with taking away my last refuge, however, the antismoking bullies hector me from every door, wall and window they can find, even in places where no one would ever expect to smoke (health food shops, for instance).
In my hometown, Portsmouth, I saw NO SMOKING signs in bus stops and car parks, and even no less than five signs in a phone box. Leaving aside for the moment my own conviction, based on years of research, that the dangers of smoking are greatly exagerrated and the dangers of ‘passive smoke’ non-existent, I imagine that even nonsmokers must feel oppressed by so much meanness and so much sheer visual ugliness.
Screamed
It was the same story in the rehearsal room just outside town where we prepared for the tour. The signage screamed at us even in the toilets. DO NOT THROW PAPER INTO THE URINALS. I wonder how many people go into a cubicle to get some paper, use it for God knows what, and then try to stuff it down a hole into which it obviously cannot fit. Meanwhile, in the cubicle: PLEASE FLUSH THE TOILET BEFORE LEAVING. Now, I’ve known to do this since I was maybe three, but perhaps I’m unusual.
And so, through a gauntlet of speed cameras, to Cardiff, whose waterfront redevelopment and shops and restaurants and signs and more signs look exactly like … Portsmouth. And for those of you who’ve always wondered what the artists’ dressing rooms are like, I can tell you: they are plastered with signs. In this case, the NO SMOKING signs are supplemented by directions to the ARTISTS’ DESIGNATED SMOKING AREA, which turns out to be a tiny outside enclosure where the garbage bins are kept and rats scurry underfoot.
But enough about smoking. There are also, since the dressing rooms are on two levels, signs both at the bottom and top of the stairs: PLEASE MIND THE STAIRS. Thank God, otherwise I might have just walked up and down them without a care in the world.
Warning
Thank God, too, for that close cousin of the sign: the warning label. Here’s one informing me that my 330ml bottle of beer comprises 1.7 UK ALCOHOL UNITS and that RESPONSIBLE DRINKERS DON’T EXCEED 4 DAILY UNITS (MEN) 3 DAILY UNITS (WOMEN). But apart from the fact that I’ve met men who are reduced to giggling ninnies after a half of lager and women who could drink me under the table, my poor brain can’t quite seem to make sense of 330 ml divided by 1.7×4, or whatever the calculation has to be.
Back at our hotel, my bedside lights have notices above them saying CAUTION: HOT SURFACE! I touched one of them. It was quite warm, but not enough to burn me. What was the problem? Were they afraid of being sued by someone outraged just by the possibility that they could have been hotter?
This line of thinking resurfaced the next morning when I went down to the lobby and saw that a lady had apparently slipped and fallen on the stairs. Members of staff were buzzing around her like flies, jabbering into mobile phones and walkie-talkies, applying icepacks to her ankle, and offering her a free glass of politically-correct non-alcoholic juice which she refused, saying, “For Christ’s sake, I’m alright, it’s not like I fell on my head or anything!”
Then, in the hotel gym: more signs. Health and Safety Uber Alles! In the free-weights area were three signs (why is one never enough?) reading DO NOT DROP THE WEIGHTS AFTER USE. To prevent noise and/or damage? But the weights were rubber-covered dumbells and the floor covered with thick rubber matting. As an experiment, I dropped a 12kg dumbell from a height of about 18 inches. It barely made a sound.
Insulted
I could go on, but you probably get the point. I suppose I should do the only thing one can do about Screaming Signs, which is to ignore them, but I can’t help feeling insulted and oppressed by them, and wondering: why? Are we such a nation of abysmal fools and miscreants? Or is the constant nagging actually dumbing us down, and making us less responsible? Or making us sullen, resentful, and more and more likely to smash a CCTV camera after a couple of units of alcohol too many?
In debates about the ridiculous UK licensing laws (which, for all the Daily Mail scaremongering, mostly haven’t changed much) there has always been a side which maintains that the British are so inherently bestial that without an ever-growing mass of restrictions and regulations, things would be even worse. Personally, I think that if a country persists in treating its citizens like naughty schoolchildren, then that is how they will tend to behave.
I also think that authority in the UK – from the bottom to the top – is in the hands of an even worse bunch of self-righteous busybodies than usual. The question is, how can we stop it from getting worse and worse?
Joe Jackson is a writer and musician
www.joejackson.com
Comments
Margot Johnson (Mon Mar 17, 01:28 PM)
Well it’s jobs for the boys, Joe. They’ve got spend our taxpayers’ money on something, haven’t they?
Good luck with the rest of the tour and your loan fight to spread the pro-smoking message around the world. The commercial corruption of Big Brother Pharma is reaching out to every part of the globe now.
MJ
Foster (Mon Mar 17, 04:52 PM)
Totally agree about the pubs. They used to be nice warm friendly places, where you could enjoy a nice ciggy and a pint. Now they are just politically correct harassment areas. No this! No that! Well – no longer use pubs anymore, at least not in the UK. Really sad what we’ve let them do to us.
Fossy
Claire Fox, Institute of Ideas (Mon Mar 17, 05:37 PM)
Joe,
Well said; also great minds and all that. I have just written an article on health & safety madness for a local authority magazine, the MJ – see http://www.localgov.co.uk/index.cfm?method=news.detail&ID=64671&&keywords=claire%20fox
Sigrid H. (Mon Mar 17, 06:35 PM)
If it’s any consolation: I am writing from South Africa this minute, and please be assured that the “Do not” sign syndrome is alive and well here too, although not quite as heavily as in my normal residence, Spain. It’s the thing governments of all civilized (ha ha) countries on this earth are thriving on – control, control, control. Or is it just the socialist ones?
Adrian Brown (Mon Mar 17, 07:06 PM)
Yes, a good point. Adults are infantalised by NuLabor; treated as errant, untrustworthy schoolchildren who need keeping tabs on. Of course we respond in kind! And that’s partly the point. Our Headmaster and his creeps’ cabinet want us to “misbehave” so they can justify further repressive legislation against us.
The role of public-signage seems to have changed over the last ten years or so. What was once a means to guide and inform is there now to bark orders at us, to keep us in our place.
When we disobey whatever instruction the signage is giving us and we’re lucky enough to secure the intervention of a semi-sentient controller, their opening gambit is likely to be one of pointing at the sign whilst demanding “Are you blind? Can’t you read?”. So the assumption is that it is “normal” to obey printed orders to the letter, no matter how ill-conceived and arbitrary that instruction may be. That any dissent is almost incomprehensible.
chas (Mon Mar 17, 08:00 PM)
Joe, I disagree. We need more signs. We need signs on every street, every five yards, warning us of the dangers of traffic fumes. ‘Traffic fumes cause heart attacks’. Traffic fumes kill’. ‘Traffic fumes cause asthma’ and many more.
Steven (Mon Mar 17, 08:07 PM)
I read your article and the comments and it is just as crazy here in the US. My employer is talking about banning smoking there just because he doesn’t like smoking. The sign that makes me laugh the most is the one that says “No Stopping on Pavement” I guess if someone is stopped in front of you, you have to run into them? I just feel that there are better things that can be more productive then controling what we do from day to day.
Tony Collins (Mon Mar 17, 08:35 PM)
Since the smokintg ban came in last year amid a blaze of publicity I should think that everybody knows about it.
So why should it be necessary to plaster all premises with these rude signs?
Why not mandatory signs saying “No Raping or Pillaging” or “It Is Against The Law To Murder Anyone Here”?
Bill C (Mon Mar 17, 09:40 PM)
To give you an idea of the Health & Safety culture in the UK, it can be summed up by a single door.
This door is an access to our stores in a manufacturing site in Oxfordshire. Before entering this door, in theory you have to read 9 warning signs – complete and utter madness. So many signs that in the end the average person ignores the lot. What is the point?
sue b (Mon Mar 17, 10:50 PM)
just wondering if any M.P reads this stuff – I think they should be made to – the penny may drop – as they who supposedly are there to serve the people – if they were to read these messages surely realizations that all they are doing is alienating the people and how so out of touch with the people they are!!!!
Joyce (Mon Mar 17, 11:03 PM)
I think that Adrian Brown has made an important point when he says that the purpose of signs now includes the barking of orders – usually in a peremptory way. Others offer unnecessary information, one of my “favourites” being “FOG – SLOW DOWN”.
Today I travelled on a stretch of dual carriageway part of which has its 70mph limit reduced to 50mph because of road works – except for the past six weeks there’s been no sign of any work. It looks as if they’ve forgotten to remove the signs despite which the traffic dutifully slows down. I think that it all insidiously seeps into people’s consciousness so that we obey unthinkingly – very unhealthy.
Hilary Phillips (Tue Mar 18, 08:39 AM)
Knowing that I smoke, I have been piously reminded last week that it was “No Smoking Day” Who was responsible for this designation? How dare they? Other pleasures, if not responsibly practised, are as costly to Society but I doubt the emergence of a “No Sex without a condom” Day.
Peter (Tue Mar 18, 08:55 AM)
I think until the compensation culture is removed from our society nothing will ever change. It will only become worse until one day common sense may prevail.Then we may see a balanced society again.
Lapompa Delamore (Tue Mar 18, 12:10 PM)
My favourite so far is the open-air car park outside Putney Leisure Centre, right next to the South Circular Road, a major trunk route notorious in this area for its constant traffic jams. On a still day, the exhaust fumes and diesel particulates can make your eyes water.
Smoking is, of course, forbidden.
Zitori (Tue Mar 18, 12:28 PM)
The most bizarre signs I’ve seen were in the Science museum a few weeks ago.
‘NO GUNS’ ‘NO HAMMERS’ What???!!
My son and I had hysterics.
Hugh McKeefery (Tue Mar 18, 03:13 PM)
I agree with Chas entirely about traffic fumes, as I am almost choked with them when I am waiting to cross the road at traffic lights. I have never heard of anyone dying of cigarette fumes in a pub, but when someone sits in their garage with the car engine running it does not take long for them to die.
Pamela Furnival (Tue Mar 18, 05:06 PM)
I agree but how can we stop this lunacy, and are the petions doing any good?
Peter (Wed Mar 19, 01:31 PM)
Perhaps you should all visit my once lovely town of Rochdale. You can just about see the infirmary because of warning signs abundant in the car park.
Park on the town hall square you have a camera which speaks ’ Make sure your car doors are locked thieves operate in this area’.
And another camera over a subway speaks ’ Take care in the subway muggers and theives operate in this area’.
Lovely, is’nt it.
Ray Kelly (Wed Mar 19, 04:34 PM)
As always a great letter from Joe. The most important part of the letter I feel was the last few lines “how can we stop it from getting worse and worse”? Any ideas anyone?
PS. Saw a great sign on an Indian bus recently “No spitting in this area”!!
Colin Munro (Wed Mar 19, 05:15 PM)
There’s a lot of debate as to what we smokers can do about the anti smoking legislation in place. I for one have just e-mailed my MP as follows, feel free to copy my mail and send to your own mp, which you can find here.http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Diol1/DoItOnline/DG_4018047?CID=DG_FEB_08&TYPE=sponsoredsearch
‘I’d like to have your response to the following question
I believe in choice, not a nanny state {yes I am a smoker} If smoking is to be banned on health grounds even on spurious medical evidence, why not ban the public consumption of alcohol as there is hard evidence of alcohols’ contribution to the nations’ health.‘If the Conservative Party wins the next election, will it maintain, extend or remove the current Governments’ smoking ban’?
If the smoking ban is to remain could you please tell me on what medical grounds has it been proven that passive smoking is any more dangerous than exhaust fumes from cars, or drink driving related fatalities? My belief is that no firm medical evidence exists to prove the dangers of passive smoking.
I and 5 million other smokers will await your reply.
Best Wishes
Colin Munro
Peter (Wed Mar 19, 05:20 PM)
Pamela & Ray, How can we stop this nonsense from esculating even worse ? Well a fine start is to vote Nulab out. But do not put much faith in the alternative mainstream parties either they will just ‘toe the line’.
The country needs a complete radical change of attitude to put the pride back into it and this will only take some brave people to do it with a brand new party.
Liberty or Death (Thu Mar 20, 10:12 AM)
Peter, I thought we had 12 million smokers in this country – and am curious as to where the 5 million figure came from(?)
Also, in the House of Lords debate, one of the Lords said in his argument that he had done some research based on previous assertions and found there was no evidence that British society had become more litigious.
I recall thinking at the time… is that actually the crux of all this? Fear of litigation? (Of course the McTear case should surely have placed a huge dent in that fear). If that IS the crux of it, the way forward is to stop infantilising, nannying, bullying and dumbing down, and to restore common sense, personal responsibility and thence… FREEDOM.
Lynda Coolidge (Wed Apr 2, 02:45 PM)
Life is becoming less fun and more intolerant. The credit squeeze, the smoking ban and the threat of the £4 pint are all blamed for Pub closures, which according to the British Beer and Pub Association are happening at the rate of 27 a week. It estimates that another 1,000 will close before the end of the year. Pub closures at this rate are threatening an important hub of our social fabric and community history.
Beer sales are now at their lowest level since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Pubs are currently pulling 14 million fewer pints a day than when sales were at their peak in 1979. There are still 57,000 pubs left in Britain but total alcohol sales have dropped by six per cent in the past 12 months alone. Hmmm. The more this government bans, the harder is is on EVERYONE and the knock on effect is not even considered. When the government banned advertising crisps, sweets and yoghurts to children, whole industries took a dive; not just the food industry, but also the advertising industry, (actors, singers musicians, secretaries PAs, creative directors, sales departments and everyone involved) and the broadcasting industry! This explains why the commercial TV companies have such a dreary collection of cheap TV shows coupled with old US imports! Soon alcohol ads will also be banned. If you look at the only ads we are allowed to watch, you will only see loans ads, car ads, insurance scam ads, charity ads and a handful of furniture companies. That’s it! We are not allowed to hear about Yoplait yoghurt or a new Barbie Doll anymore, but we can get £25,000 into debt just by calling this number…
This is an atrocity for a supposedly free society.
The trouble is, there is nowhere to run to. It is global.
Arthur (Sun May 4, 09:20 PM)
Totally right.
Am a young French student, and I went to UK for the first time two weeks ago. I got really shocked by the omnipresence of cameras in streets, shops, etc. “For your security”, something like that, they said. I was more uncomfortable than feeling in security. I heard about the great paranoia in UK, but I didn’t imagine it was like that.
We have these stupid signs in France too, like “Do not touch the electric generator”, or “Do not swallow” on a stick of glue, and am sometimes wondering “Are there people so dumb to do that?”. That’s just pathetic, how they try to manipulate us everywhere.
Hope to see you in the south-west of France (Bordeaux, for example), someday. Someday.
Arthur Laville