h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

As if to confirm that we are being strangled by red tape, I read that GBH (Gordon-Bennet Heathcliff) has carved himself a niche in history by introducing 2,823 new laws during his first year in office, and this despite his repeated promises to cut red tape.

But it not just the sheer volume of legislation, it is the armies of officials that will be required to enforce them and even then, the quality of the enforcement leaves one reeling in disbelief.

My little brother – who has a degree in planting trees – proudly tells me that he is now, after a three month correspondence course, a registered ‘Access Auditor’ and has a phd to prove it.

This is wonderful and means that I (an architect, with a qualification which takes twenty-eight times as long to acquire - on a good day, and is then only referred to as ‘a diploma’) now have to submit all my plans to him so that he can check that my buildings have entrances.

His salary for this onerous task is higher than mine and carries an index-linked pension, subsidised mortgage, car allowance and all the other benefits that local authority officials steep in.

You can be sent to prison for four-and-a-half years for talking to a hands-free telephone when driving a car (if you are involved in a fatal accident). Fair enough! Personally, I think that ANYONE using a mobile telephone – hands-free or otherwise – in anything other than the privacy of their own home or office, should be incarcerated in specially-built prisons for mobile phone users. But that’s not the point.

It’s NOT in the least bit ‘fair’ as it is apparently long way short of a custodial sentence to drive into people and kill them because your head is under the dashboard looking for a tissue to clean you makeup and merely a minor misdemeanour to deliberately run into someone on a bicycle and kill them. The crime is not killing people, it’s what you were doing while you were killing them and appears to be more significant than either the motive or the offence (of manslaughter or murder). It’s all in the rules – somewhere.

When are they going to make it illegal for drivers to talk to passengers in vehicles? Shouldn’t all vehicles be redesigned so that the driver sits in a soundproof capsule or maybe drivers should be accompanied by a local authority ‘speech enforcement officer’ on all journeys to ensure that they remain silent?

And what about satellite navigation? We have already had a patient die after the ambulance driver got lost because he didn’t know the way to the hospital and relied on satellite navigation that either he didn’t understand or didn’t work. Nobody thought of questioning whether it might be a good idea if ambulance drivers had some idea as to how to get to hospitals BEFORE they were let lose collecting patients.

Moroccan ambulances have the words ‘MAD Assistance’ emblazoned all over them – maybe ‘Ol Blighty should consider doing the same.

But - what will happen when someone gets killed because the driver is so intent on looking at the sat-nav screen that they don’t see someone standing in the middle of the road in front of them? Perhaps they will sue the manufacturers of the equipment.

Very recently, a child was tragically killed in an accident whilst canoeing with her father and brothers. Somehow the reports implied that this was ALL the fault of the man who hired them the canoe. He didn’t have any ‘training’! Training in WHAT for heavens sake?

Just as one now appears that you require local authority officials and the emergency services present if you want to organise an egg-and-spoon race at the village fete, every last thing that we do has to be done in such a way that it can be supervised and checked and someone else can be blamed for acts of crass stupidity!

Parents cannot take their children swimming alone unless they have a certificate from the regulatory authorities certifying that they are NOT someone who, it has taken me three days to discover, is a described using a word that is banned by auntie and needs to be delete before I am permitted to publish this!!!! (Which rather proves my point – one cannot even describe the law without breaking it!!!) The mother of a severely handicapped child is not allowed to accompany her child to school in a taxi (which she needs to do as she and her husband are the ones trained in the administration of the child’s medication) because she has not been ‘vetted’ and even then – it appears – she still has to be accompanied by some form of supervising ‘officer’.

Is the time coming when EVERY parent will require the attendance of a local authority enforcement officer, a paramedic and a policeman whenever they bath the baby or take their children anywhere?

Costermongers can no longer sell fruit and vegetables unless they have been checked by the local authorities’ ‘kiwi-fruit size enforcement officers’ …………………….

Hang on – that was just one week’s news and we haven’t got to the silly season yet.

Yes, some things beggar belief.

Dear Pedantic.Bar steward
masquerading as an architect. !1

My goodness, it is too dreadful.

One wonderful thing about being 80 is that |I no longer care!!

I know how short life is, how little time there is, and I am darned if I am going to get upset about otther people's silly mistakes etc;

I know that I have to try and do the right thing and give appreciation when |I enjoy things. Although I thought everything you said was correct and right I had to force myself to read it because it was so true. I really did not want to be depressed. Which incidentally I am not as I have now made a super new friend Yours truly.

Le Maroc - and why pray should everyone speak zee Eengleesh? Perhaps everyone should speepe de French!!

I love you sililoquy and hope that you will continue enjoying life and living it as it should be lived. That basically is the only thing thatnwe can do.

Incidentally who is fatima. and I would love to hear about the dolphins taking you to safety.

Thank you for making contact with nme.
I look forward to our friendship.

Christiane
AlsoRan80

Christiane, you really should read the PBS' Tales of Benshasha which you'll find here:

A36703316

Hi Cristiane
Thanks for the comments - my (different) life in Morocco can best be seen at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/A36703316
were The Post is good enough to publish the tale for those with nothing better to do than read my drivel.
Architectin is OK but the game has become just TOOOO corrupt (everywhere) so I now design what I want, when I want. I have built quite enough monuments for one person's lifetime anyway and I now enjoy (far more) giving back a little of what I have learnt and experienced.

Anyway - as to Dolphins and Sharks:

(from 'Tales of Aden)
In my sailing exploits I have had one strange experience in Aden, maybe worth mention. One Friday evening, I was sailing back into Gold Mohur bay after an afternoon imbibing Dandar’s beer on ‘wreck beach’. The sea was higher than usual, at about 2.5m, and the boat (an old Lasar) was even more unstable because it leaked like a sieve and was more than half full of water. It probably didn’t help that I was also more than half full of beer!
To go round the point at Elephant's Back, on the shortest route, you ended up sailing dead down wind. I capsized rather more often than I would have wished. On a good day I could manage to capsize and get the boat up without getting my feet wet but that was going into the wind and beer-less, going back - no chance. On the way back, I passed three dolphins going in the opposite direction; they are always a wonderful sight when you are on the water and somehow make you feel ‘safe’.

Ten minutes later - and after the twelfth or thirteenth consecutive capsize - I though it was a bit stupid and just hung on to the centre board in order to get my breath back. A sudden bump on my thigh, by what felt like half a ton of sandpaper, brought me back to reality and would have cured the most constipated person in the world. However, the black 'thing' in the water hadn't bitten my leg off and when it next appeared there were three of them and they were smiling and squeaking. I relaxed.

The same dolphins (I presume) that I had seen before, had come back and for the next five minutes or so kept swimming round me, nudging me and squeaking. I wish I knew what they were trying to say; it was very obviously something, and something that they thought important.

I got my breath back (twice), got the boat upright and sailed round the corner. When I got into Gold Mohur Bay, the dolphins made an enormous leap out of the water, turned round and went off on in the direction that I had first seen them going. From there on it was simple and I just sailed home.

It was a singularly strange experience and I told Bob, an itinerant 'aid' worker and inveterate fisherman, about it in the pub later. “Sharks about dear boy” he said, “they often do that,” as though it happened every day.

Perhaps it does.

I can be contacted by e-maol at [email protected]

I look forward to hearing from you.

I would dearly love to know what I wrote that offended someone - unfortunately I didn't copy the first part, only 'Dolphins & Sharks' and there wasn't a word in tht which was remotely offensive!!

Seeing as it was gone so quickly, I guess some word must have triggered the 'second' filter. I'm sure the post will be abck in due time.

In case it doesn't, here is the bit from 'Tales of Aden'

Dolphins and Sharks

In my sailing exploits I have had one strange experience in Aden, maybe worth mention. One Friday evening, I was sailing back into Gold Mohur bay after an afternoon imbibing Dandar’s beer on ‘wreck beach’. The sea was higher than usual, at about 2.5m, and the boat (a very old Lasar) was even more unstable because it leaked like a sieve and was more than half full of water. It probably didn’t help that I was also more than half full of beer!
To go round the point at Elephant's Back, on the shortest route, you ended up sailing dead down wind. I capsized rather more often than I would have wished. On a good day I could manage to capsize and get the boat up without getting my feet wet but that was going into the wind and beer-less, going back - no chance. On the way back, I passed three dolphins going in the opposite direction; they are always a wonderful sight when you are on the water and somehow make you feel ‘safe’.

Ten minutes later - and after the twelfth or thirteenth consecutive capsize - I though it was a bit stupid and just hung on to the centre board in order to get my breath back. A sudden bump on my thigh, by what felt like half a ton of sandpaper, brought me back to reality and would have cured the most constipated person in the world. However, the black 'thing' in the water hadn't bitten my leg off and when it next appeared there were three of them and they were smiling and squeaking. I relaxed.

The same dolphins (I presume) that I had seen before, had come back and for the next five minutes or so kept swimming round me, nudging me and squeaking. I wish I knew what they were trying to say; it was very obviously something - and something that they thought important.

I got my breath back (twice), got the boat upright and sailed round the corner. When I got into Gold Mohur Bay, the dolphins made an enormous leap out of the water, turned round and went off on in the direction that I had first seen them going. From there on it was simple and I just sailed home.

It was a singularly strange experience and I told Bob – an itinerant ‘aid’ worker and inveterate fisherman – about it in the pub later. “Sharks about dear boy” he said, “they often do that,” as though it happened every day.

Perhaps it does.

Well, that is still around

A heartwarming story indeed

Then all the more strange as it said little other than giving the link to the ToB stories and explaing why I gave up architecting (much as is on my profile anyway).

As I am not in the habit of using bad language (unless my poems are considered such) here I can only think that it was that I included my e-mail address. Does that break house rules?

If that is the reason, then you will be given the opportunity to remove the email address when you are told why it's been moderated.

Sometimes, the mods will just hide that bit themselves, if there is some concern about email addresses.

Goodnight for now,


lil xx