Health & Safety

Health and Safety is a good thing. Warnings are good if there is a genuine risk of danger. However as a nation we are being treated like idiots. There are some warnings that are useful, a classic is a "Beware of the dog" sign. Great. I know if I go in that area then there is a dog I need to be wary of. The plaque on the top of the food warmer section of the fryers in chip shops that says "Caution: Hot" is unnecessary. If I'm tall enough to touch that part of the equipment then I'm big enough, old enough, supposedly wise enough to realise that, since it is attached to the container of hot oil and is made of metal, it's a bit warm. The sign on the side of petrol pumps telling us they contain a flammable liquid is unnecessary. It's a petrol pump. It has petrol in it. Of course there is a flammable liquid in there, that's the whole point of it's existence. What next, warnings stamped on the heads of sharks saying "Warning: Contains Teeth"?

Did you know that a chainsaw has a moving blade that could chop off a body part? No? Neither did I, that was of course until I read the safety notice on the box of my chainsaw, suddenly I became a safer person, less likely to try and grab the spinning chain, or rest it on my leg whilst it is in motion. No, wait, I did know that, and do you know why? Because I've got a fucking brain in my nut. To be honest, if some numpty is stupid enough to grab the spinning blade of a chainsaw then frankly we are better off without them.

I was in a store in Guisborough, a small town not far from Middlesbrough, that was selling, amongst other things, cutlery. I had some time to kill so I was looking through the items and saw a children's cutlery set. A children's cutlery set, for those who don't know, consists of a small knife, which is about an inch in thickness, round as the top, has no sharp edge and can just about cut through mashed potato, a small fork, which has big rounded ends on the prongs so that a child couldn't stab themselves (or their food for that matter), and a small spoon that is really a mini spatula as it hasn't got a curved surface for things like soup or custard to gather on, they merely run over the side like when you spill a drink on a table. They are designed to be safe in the hands of babies and purposely shaped so they cannot cause an injury. Attached to the packaging was a sticker saying "WARNING! Do not sell to persons under the age of 18!". So, just to clarify that, a teenage mum can't buy that product, but their 1 year old child can use it to eat.

Of course, most of these warning signs are focused on safety. The health warnings are even more staggering. For example, bleach with a "Do not drink" warning on it. Why? It's bleach, I know not to drink it, because it's bleach. Are these companies really frightened of someone downing a bottle of Domestos and then saying "well, it didn't say on the bottle I couldn't drink it". It also doesn't say on the bottle "Not for anal use" but that doesn't mean I'm going to shove it up my arse for my own amusement. Not again, anyway. Hang on, that was toilet duck. Bloody angled neck.

At work this week we had a company do a "Live Well Work Well" session with us. The theory being if we improved our health then sickness levels would drop. I've been to a few of these in the past and found them quite informative. I've learned at these events that my blood pressure was a bit high and that I was very overweight. I also learned that smoking is bad for you, as is eating too much fast food, doing no exercise, and drinking excessively. All useful information that. However, this session was a bit different. The group had to stand up in a circle and imagine being stressed, then imagine what emotion was being felt at the time. The group leader then threw a ball at someone (putting pressure on them to catch it, thus increasing their stress levels), and then they had to share their emotion. Then we had to think of a long term health condition that could result if suffering from stress and the ball was thrown about again. The final thing in this activity was to think of an something that we did to relieve stress. Now, I can pretty much guarantee that 90% of people reading this are thinking of masturbation (I know I was at the time), but as I was around some people I didn't know I didn't think it was the right social setting to share that, so I opted for listening to music instead. Interestingly, most people suggested drinking as their relaxation activity, not very good for your health that.

The final activity was to do with BMI and waist measurement which involved a special tape measure with a BMI wheel on it. Using these measures I discovered I had the waist measurement of a small planet and the BMI of a rhino. Annoyingly all the people who said they drank to relieve stress were much skinnier and healthier looking than me. Perhaps drinking has some benefits after all, not that they'd put that on the label.