Friday morning, 3am

Yes, I know it's early. I just thought I'd better disable the hay-baler. You can't be too careful.

Hysterical re-enactment

Young Keith asked me to help him with a reenactment this morning, so I said, "yes", as I've always liked the idea of historical reenactments. Mrs Hnaef won't let me join the Sealed Knot because "you'd hurt yourself, you'd get obsessive about it, and there's beer, though I suspect they call it 'ale'. And probably don't wash." So I jumped at the chance of doing some with Young Keith.

First, he asked me to lie down near my house. Then he drove a bull-dozer towards me. I got up. Quite quickly.

He told me to lie down again, but first to go and put on my dressing gown, because he'd forgotten that bit. I went and put on my dressing gown, he presented me with a cup of tea, and told me to lie down again. He then backed up the bull-dozer and drove it at me again. I got up. With, I might say, quite some alacrity for a person of my years.

This went on for a while, and there were quite a few Beaker Folk standing round and watching. Some, I noticed, were taking bets each time I lay down again and Young Keith re-started the bull-dozer.

Then the Archdruid came along with a video camera, and started filming the whole procedure, for "A Health & Safety Instruction Video". Or "just to see if he'll keep doing it", as I heard her mutter to Mrs Hnaef, who was also watching, and, I noticed, singularly failing even to try to stop Young Keith.

At this point, I got bored of the whole thing, and headed off to the White Horse for several beers. Young Keith, for some reason, had a packet of frozen beefburgers. Luckily, I had a towel.

Now - what's that in my ear?

The Flying Beefburger - a Cautionary Tale

Once upon a time in a supermarket in southern England, there were two workmates and colleagues. Let us call them Pete and Dud. Pete and Dud worked in the same section, and they were good mates.

One day, as a bit of a larf, Pete threw a beefburger at Dud (this was before we knew about Mad Cow Disease, so clearly Pete was unaware of the risks). Dud, caught unawares, failed to catch the flying disk of protein, and it hit him above the eye.

This was worse news for Dud than you might imagine. For Pete and Dud worked in the frozen foods department. The frozen burger cut Dud's head open, and Dud subsequently spent a while in Luton's finest Casualty department.

Now the thing is, nobody actually has a rule in their terms and conditions stipulating that you can't throw beefburgers at people. Or, at least, none that I know of. Maybe in the public sector, where crack teams of HR people are employed to labour long into the afternoon drawing up Terms & Conditions, there might be some such rule. Or, I suppose, in a burger manufactory, where such incidents are potentially more common, you might see a sign on the wall saying "Flying Beefburgers Can Give You A Nasty Cut - Don't Throw Them". With, no doubt, an amusing image of a flying burger.

But our supermarkets sell thousands of products. They can't have a separate rule for every product. The contract would be hundreds of pages long. So, apart from a few obvious rules such as don't turn up to work under the influence, and some stuff about not using machinery without training and not sitting too close to the bandsaw, they stick to one general one along the lines of "no pratting about". Throwing a frozen beefburger at someone definitely fits under the heading of pratting about. So Pete had, by ignoring the rules, put someone in hospital. A Disciplinary hovered before him.

Knowing what the end might be for his mate, Dud wavered long and hard before writing the description of his accident in the accident book. In the end it read "I hit my head on the racking" - which is not a disciplinary offence. So Dud had an afternoon off work, Pete kept his job, and within a week they were back to throwing frozen comestibles at each other just like old times. With Dud suffering no more than light scarring, and a dull ache above the eyebrow when the wind was in the east.

Now my point is this. Throwing a beefburger could have got Pete the sack. While hitting your head on the racking is a legitimate business activity. As a result I suspect that the actual rate of beefburger throwing, and the resultant level of injury, is woefully under-reported.

Somewhere, as I write, someone is considering padding all the racking in frozen food departments and giving warehousemen spatial awareness training. Whereas what they should be doing is training them to catch. Although, if councils ran supermarkets, some jobsworth would solve the problem by banning frozen food. But if we accepted people as they are - fallible, sinful and stupid - and mitigated the punishment if they owned up - forgave them if they repented - the world would be a more sensible place. People could learn from their mistakes. And fewer people would need stitches in their foreheads.

Autonomous Self and Safety

It strikes me, in retrospect, that this morning's comments on Health and Safety may have been construed as no more than a rant. Which is fair enough - it was to a large extent. And so to counter this I may need to do some serious theological thinking on H&S.

This thinking starts with the reflection that from dust we came, and to dust we will return. However safe we try to make ourselves, our lives will end. And that gives a kind of comparison.  If our lives were of endless natural duration, but we could lose them through accident, we would be far more careful than if our natural lifespans were 21 years - especially after the age of 20. What I'm saying is, it's all relative.

We shall have to make the assumption that we have a degree of free will. Clearly nobody has completely  free will - their actions will always be influenced by current constraints, the state of their digestion, their upbringing and so on. But, on the other hand, if we have no free will and live in a totally deterministic universe, then we may as well resign ourselves to our fate. We would have no choice but to resign ourselves to whatever a capricious Universal Will decided what might be fun. Basically, in a deterministic universe there's no point running. If you're sure to get run over by a JCB you may as well go and lay down in its path and get it over with. No point hiding in a foreign country so somebody's got to go to all the trouble and expense of shipping a JCB out there, hunting you down and running you over. Where's the fun in that? And there's no sense hiding in your bed in your fifteenth-floor flat. Fate may have to take a lot of trouble getting the JCB up the stairs, but it'll make sure it happens.

No, we must have some free will or there is no point either in Health, or Safety. And we must assume we have some kind of responsibility, for no man is an island entire of itself. If you fall from the warehouse racking then there are not just consequences for you. There are consequences for your widow or widower.  For your children. For your employer. For the lawyer whom your relict now will employ to sue the pants off the employer on a no-win, no-fee basis. For the bloke from the Health and Safety Executive, who was looking forward to slipping off early this Friday for a dirty weekend in Haywards Heath but will now have to schlep down to Daventry to inspect the white chalk outline where you previously lay. And the HSE bloke's missus isn't going to go unaffected in all this. Nor the hoteliers of Haywards Heath, who will have yet another cancelled booking to deal with. Before you know it (not that you will - because you've been scraped off the place where the white chalk outline is, and rolled up to fit in the box) there's a massive network of people all over the country mourning, making money, or with another bedroom to let, and all because you couldn't be bothered to get the airplane steps and just climbed up on the racking instead. And it's no good getting angry with you, because you're well out of it dead and left everybody else in it, you selfish so and so. Typical of you, that is, getting yourself killed and then not taking responsibility for the consequences.

Sorry.  Where was I? Ah yes.You see, contrary to popular opinion, Health and Safety is not about the total elimination of risk. If it were, we'd all be dead. As the only way to ensure we're not the unfortunate victim of a road traffic accident is to stay in bed. And if everyone did that we'd all starve. Safely.

If anyone says that the only acceptable number of accidents is zero, then they don't understand the issue. The only way for a business - even an office acting as an arms-length value-added reseller of soft cushions - not to have any accidents is to do no trade. Never to open the door. And if the supermarkets and farmers (dangerous activity, farming) and fisherpeople (very dangerous activity, fishing) and transport hauliers all adopted this theory - we'd all starve to death.

And we care deeply about keeping children safe. But between the risk of infectious diseases, or of a frightening book allergy, and the danger of little Jimmy or, as it may be, Jade skinning their knees on the playground, you can't eliminate all risk from school, without closing all the schools. And the result of that, after the country lost all competitiveness in world markets, would be that we all eventually starved to death  So you can see that the consequence of being very safe is starving to death, no matter how you look at it.

No, merely opening the door of the office in the morning - even going to the office - is taking a risk, however calculated and small. So we have to balance the good effects of industry against the risk and ill-effects of accident. And the proper role of Health and Safety is to get that balance right - keeping the risk of serious injury appropriately small while still going about our personal lives.

But there are things that weight towards the safe end. The obvious one being that the result of a serious accident of any kind is that a lawyer gets involved and it costs everyone a fortune. Whereas if we're all uber-safe, even the lawyers will starve to death. So the fear of big legal costs pushes us from the right balance point to a dangerously cowardly one. The answer in my opinion is to ban lawyers from ever going out of their houses, but apparently that increases the chances of them starving to death. And that's against Health and Safety.

Finally I will point out that among the oldest Health and Safety regulations we have is this from Dt 22:8

"When you build a new house, make a parapet around your roof so that you may not bring the guilt of bloodshed on your house if someone falls from the roof."

In other words, it's not telling you not to let people walk around on your roof - for they have free will, and you may have a nice view from your roof. Why shouldn't people walk around on your roof, if you let them? Obviously, you want a bit of a veto. After all - it's your roof. You don't want just anyone up there. Especially not if they have a JCB and you suspect this may be a totally deterministic universe. But after appropriate training, and signing a waiver, and wearing a hi-viz and safety goggles and hard hat, why not tell them they can go ahead - have a walk on the roof.

But some people are dim. Some don't have that aversion to falling from heights that most people have evolved. They may come from Holland or Norfolk, where having a fear of heights brings no real evolutionary advantage. So, specially for these people - or for the ones you've invited to a special "flat roof party" - put a parapet around, says the Good Book. That'll stop them inadvertently plummeting off while looking in the other direction. If they climb over the parapet - against all the training and the "Roof Instruction Manual" you gave them before letting them out - and they have removed the safety harness with which you fitted them, with its two hooks clamping them onto the safety rail you put on your parapet - if, after all that, you still see them dropping past the window with a startled look on your face - then it's their own fault. Their blood is not on your head (not, at least, unless you broke their fall). And the only people that will starve to death will be the lawyers.

Health & Safety Gone Mad

I've read with interest the BBC's report into claims that companies and councils have used Health & Safety as an excuse for banning completely reasonable activities. And I've a suspicion that the companies doing it may have other reasons than H&S for these excuses. They may have thought of a way of making money, for example. Banning people from smoking breaks on Health & Safety grounds may give you grumpy smokers in the short term, but long term a healthier workforce that will hopefully be more productive. Although smokers are cheaper to provide pensions to long-term, so I would be interested to see if companies carrying a large final-salary pension liability would be keener on allowing smoking breaks than those that have money-purchase schemes.

Not so Councils. It has long been my belief that anyone of moderate talents with a love of pushing people about and a hatred of people should look for a job as a local goverment Environmental Officer. Here you can pass diktats to your heart's content, impose council facilities where you like, ban things you don't like. And blame health and safety for it all.

Or consider someone who was formerly rubbish at sports and moderate academically? A post awaits you on an LEA. Not that everyone who works in education is like this - as you can tell because if it were thus, marbles, conkers and running-about would be banned in every school in the country. Instead of which there is a light dusting of idiocy across the nation - enough to raise the blood pressure of Daily Mail readers but in fact merely sporadic, and reflecting the distribution of bureaucrats who weren't very good at games.

So Ponsonby Junior, now the Deputy Head of a middle school in the East of England, had a bad experience aged 10 when his little legs couldn't carry him all the way from the launch-board to the sandpit at long jump. Now aged 42 he takes it out on those rotters who laughed at him as he lay there with asphalt burns, by banning long jumping in case sand gets in the little one's eyes, or a cat has been using the sandpit. We all know it's rubbish, but Ponsonby blames H&S.

Little Cassandra was always rubbish at conkers - her over-protective mother always insisted she use an extra-long string because that would stop her losing an eye. Thirty years later she takes it out on the marbles-players - insisting the harmless game must be banned as a choking hazard.

During my time at the Matilda Smith-Williams school for the Daughters of Distressed Gentlefolk, I once had a tooth knocked out by a saucer, thrown through the air by someone whose parents were too poor to own a Frisbee. To this day, cups and saucers are banned for H&S reasons, which is one reason why we are the Beaker Folk.

People of Britain - this is at heart a theological matter. For what these town-hall numpties are doing is denying your human nature. Born in God's image, yet frail and fallible - what are we for if not to learn from our mistakes and to recognise that our fragility and fallibility is a pointer to the Strong Rock who is eternal and without flaw?

Next time somebody tells you that something is for H&S reasons, ask to see their Risk Assessment. And when they say you can't for Data Protection reasons, ask them, quietly and caringly, if that's because one dark day, in 1975, they forgot their kit and had to do PE in their pants. You may be surprised.

Teapots

I would like to add, for legal reasons around health and safety, a short explanation of the Archdruid's recent post. What could have been construed as an admission that she had physically thrown a teapot at Drayton actually referred, I am certain, to an occasion where she noted that he was "about as much use as a chocolate teapot".

All wounds - a rather far-reaching word, I'm sure you'd agree - that might be "inflicted" by the Archdruid, whether psychological or physical, are not of a spiritual kind, and therefore could be described as "fleshly", or "flesh wounds".

Clearly, no physical assault, real or imagined, is being referenced in the Archdruid's post.

Festival of Festive Foliage

Archdruid's Note: the Yule gathering-in of evergreen leaves, a symbol of everlasting life and hope in the midst of a deciduous world, is of great antiquity. Some have claimed that it is Celtic or even pre-Celtic. While others might point out that the first record of this happening is about the 15th Century. Either way the Festival Of Festive Foliage is an important part of Community Life, as we prepare for the Solsticial Darkapocalypse by gathering reminders of life and growth. For without growth there is no life, and without life no growth. And without that Christmas-tree smell where would Greg Lake's "I believe in Father Christmas" have found a rhyme for "peal of a bell"?

The Festival of Festive Foliage is a word-free liturgyn. We carry out this liturgical act with a soundtrack of "Stop the Cavalry". You may like to re-create the awesome experience this engenders by playing the video below.

Act of Gathering

The Moot House is empty except for Eileen and Daphne Hnaef. In front of the Important People's Area, on the  floor of the Moot House is drawn a large round circle. Before the Ceremony started, there was a small "Making the Circle" ceremony, which was both incomprehensible and rather boring. 

Ardwulf enters, bearing a sprig of holly. He lays it in the circle and takes his accustomed place.

Drogo and Marston enter, dragging a small Yule Log. They position it in the circle and take their accustomed places.

Edith Weston enters, bearing an amaryllis in flower.  There is a disagreement over whether this strictly constitutes foliage. The Archdruid suggests it be removed, but Edith appears on the edge of tears. For the sake of a peaceable community, the Archdruid is persuaded to let it lie. Lip-readers could see that she is muttering "it's a bloody flower" under her breath.

Aelfrithe enters, bearing a poinsettia. Mrs Hnaef persuades the Archdruid that those red things aren't flowers, they're a special kind of leaf. The Archdruid agrees to let it lie.


Elrod enters, bearing a bough of pyracantha. In line with good Health and Safety practice he is wearing wicket-keeper's gloves and welder's goggles. Sadly the goggles make him completely blind, so he trips over the Yule Log and impales his ear on the holly. He removes the googles, leaves the pyracantha where he dropped it, and takes his place, dabbing his bleeding ear with a piece of tissue.

Mr Woodhouse enters, with his son Mansfield bearing an African Violet. The Archdruid requests that Daphne bring it to her "because it's so lovely and I'd like to look more closely at it". Receiving it, she pulls all the flowers off and then throws the pot at Mansfield. Mansfield ducks and it catches Elrod a glancing blow. Mr Woodhouse goes back off to the Great House, saying he knew it would be dangerous to go to a ceremony.

Eloise enters, bearing a pine bough. The Archdruid smiles and makes a sign of blessing. Eloise discovers that Elrod has stood in her accustomed place, and throws him out. Elrod isn't having a great time.

 Drayton, having been convinced there is nothing pagan at all about collecting great piles of evergreen boughs for Yule, enters, bearing one end of a piece of ivy. Ten yards behind him, Kylie holds up the other end.  They take their accustomed places.

Amelie enters, bearing a blade of grass. She sees the ivy and asks whether it's poison ivy, as she's allergic to it. Drayton tells her it's not, Amelie says how does he know? Eileen points out that poison ivy doesn't grow in the United Kingdom. Amelie says that foreign species are being introduced all the time - haven't we all heard about that manatee living in the Serpentine? Eileen tells her to sit down and shut up. Amelie takes her accustomed place.

Burton Dassett appears, dragging a 12 foot Christmas tree on a go-kart.  It gets stuck in the door. He pulls it a bit but nothing happens. Then a bit more, and it topples off the go-kart and lands on Burton. Staggering around with his head wrapped in tinsel and fairy lights (for reasons known only to himself he has pre-decorated it), Burton crashes into Elrod and they both fall to the ground. Elrod catches his hand on a broken bauble.

Hnaef, who having spent the last week in an airport terminal has joined in the seasonal spirit in more ways than one, enters. Or to be precise he hurtles into the Moot House on a tractor, pulling a decent-sized pine tree. He runs over Elrod's foot, then shoots back out through the North-East Sunrise Door, scattering Beaker Folk in all directions. In the couple of moments that it takes her to dive behind the Liturgical Focus Table, Eileen notes that Hnaef, unlike Elrod, is wearing safety trainers. He has done well.

Anthem

The choir of little children break into the "choir" bit from The Darkness's "Christmas Time".

Act of Departure

Scared and dishevelled Beaker People climb back off the floor, and file off for a quick one before Filling Up of Beakers. At least the ceremony wasn't as bad or dangerous as last year. 

He setteth me upon high places

I've had a number of worried Beaker People approach me concerning Drayton's approach to his own and other people's safety while repairing the roof of St Bogwulf's Chapel.

First thing to say is, yes I am pressing for him to get a move on. It's hard enough for him up there as it is, but when the snow arrives again there's a real danger that he might slip off and hurt some-one.

The good news is that Drayton's faith is keeping him going in all this. His conviction that his feet are as those of the hind means he has no fear of falling from the roof, although it makes the purchase of safety shoes tricky. While his belief that the Good News is as a lamp unto his feet means he can happily work all night. I'm not too worried about his lack of sleep as we all know that REM sleep is necessary for processing things you've learnt during the day, and Drayton never seems to learn anything.

But in accordance with good Health and Safety practice I've insisted that he wears hi-viz and a hard hat. Partly because if he falls off at least people will have a sporting chance of seeing him coming and getting out the way.  And partly because, dressed up like that he reminds me of the sort of applicant a "Village People X-Factor" would have rejected.

1001 posts

I'm afraid any Beaker Folk needing to do some adding up over the next few days will have to do it without assistance. Burton Dasset has unexpectedly gone down with painful toes after his last posting.

Crispin's Day

I was so looking forward to today's celebrations. Hnaef promised us a really good liturgical interpretation of the day. So I was looking forward to a good liturgical setting of the battle of Agincourt. I always think liturgy is best when combined with a serious battle re-creation, in the manner of the Batley Townswomen's Guild's recreation of the Battle of Pearl Harbour. And I was looking forward to getting the old longbow out.

So imagine my surprise when instead Hnaef gave us a celebration of St Crispinian. Not even St Crispin himself.  Hnaef, ever one to favour the underdog, wouldn't even celebrate St Crispin, preferring to think of his less famous but equally martyred brother.

So, as our commemoration of one half of the patron saints of shoes and shoemaking, we had a day-trip to Northampton shoe museum, followed by "the Crispinian exhibition" back in Husborne Crawley. Hour after hour of different shoes to look at, from sandals to wellingtons. Not by the longest stretch could even I try and describe this as liturgy.  After we felt we'd wasted our lives looking at shoe after shoe - with Hnaef shouting "Left!" and "Right!" before exhibiting each member of each pair - some of the more fractious Beaker Folk started throwing shoes around - mostly at Hnaef, but a few took it upon themselves to sling them at Drayton and Burton, simply because they were there. The targets decided to retaliate. Well, two of them did. Drayton turned the other cheek, just in time to intercept a Dr Martens boot with it. But Mrs Hnaef, Kylie and Kayleigh rallied to their defence. Soon the air was full of Toetectors and winklepickers, as the massed ranks of English bowmen massacred the flower of French yeomanry. In a dreadful conflation of Shakespearean battles, Young Keith and Marston Mortaine rushed once more unto the breach, to fill it up with their Italian shoes. And cobblers in Rushden now a-bed shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their lasting sheds cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us here on Saint Crispinian's day.

So the day ended up OK, after all.

Inappropriate uses for Comic Sans

Who can doubt the utility of the Comic Sans font? Suitable for all sorts of uses - such as advertising church youth groups, trying to sell motor-cycles or advertising Indian Head Massage at the sort of company (probably soon to go bust) that thinks that kind of thing is a good idea.
But personally I'd trust no organisation that conducted its normal communication in said font. Letters from a solicitor would not encourage me because they were in a font that said "hey! We don't take you seriously!" and you rarely see Comic Sans outside Fire Stations or doctor's surgeries.

Some more things that do not gain from the use of Comic Sans might include...

Death warrant of Charles I

Book of Lamentations

Warning signs

Gettysburg Address

The mayor who hurt a tomato

Now, this is the reason that Health and Safety was invented. The Belfast mayor who kneed a tomato in the head, and has left the council with a bill for damages.


If a proper risk assessment had been carried out, by a qualified assessor, many things would have been considered. 
For example: was the ground slippery?  Was the mayor in possession of a letter from his GP confirming that he was capable of vaulting over a council worker dressed as a tomato? Was the hat on the tomato outfit a hard hat, certified to BS EN397?  


Was the run up long enough? Was he wearing the right shoes? (answer: no, he wasn't. They should have been non-spiky athletic shoes with sufficient grip for the ground conditions). Was he wearing knee pads against the possibility of knee-head contact? Was he himself wearing a hard hat?

You could have filled in quite a questionnaire on that risk assessment. Or you could have asked just one question. "You're an old bloke, proposing to vault over the head of a woman dressed as a tomato. What sort of a wally are you? 

Spiritual Limping and the Importance of Safety Shoes

Thank you all for asking, yes I'm fine.
I've just pulled that tendon at the back of my ankle.  I tell you, I'm a martyr to that tendon.  Otherwise always in perfect health, I just sometimes feel like the tendon at the back of my ankle is letting me down.  It's always been my... I'm sure the expression will come to me.

But on the subject of feet and ankles, we have laid in a new and exciting supply of safety footwear.  Out with the old steel toe-caps!  Now you can buy kevlar safety shoes.  They're lighter, safer and they don't conduct the cold into your feet on frosty mornings.  Just £35 each from the Beaker Bazaar, where we will also take your old boots off you for free.

And we've got a great new offer in the Bazaar for day and weekend pilgrims.  We can now rent you a pair of "pre-loved" steel toe-capped safety shoes at only £3 per day! (Plus a £10 deposit).

Reforming the Radical Middle

A few Beaker People have been grumpy ever since I formed the group Approving Druidism.  They said they're uncomfortable with the concept of a religion that likes things and wants to be encouraging.

So in an attempt to get a more aggressive edge to Beakerism, they've formed a new group.  They're calling it "Lever".  Their aim is to lever out of our community any people they don't think agree with the doctrinal basis of Beakerism.  They're swimming against the tide here a bit, since Beakerism doesn't have any doctrinal basis, but still - good luck to them.  You can never have too many pressure groups, I say.

In an unusual piece of international co-operation, Lever have also founded a chapter in our daughter Community, the Beakers of Madison County.  And they've called their group "Lever".  I wonder why they gave it a different name?

All going swimmingly

I've just enjoyed my daily hour-long dip in the Beaker Swimming Pool - the beautiful round indoor swimming pool we transformed the last-but-three Moot House into when it flooded. Between 2 and 3 is "Archdruids only" swimming, and it's nice to have the pool to myself.
But then it's not used much at other times.  I can't helping thinking we're suffering here from a clash between Child Protection and Health and Safety.
Going on the great example of the Bridges shopping centre, we banned anyone over the age of 16 from going in the pool in case they were any kind of danger to children.  Obviously, many of them wouldn't have been.  But you can't be too careful.
Unfortunately, under our strict Health and Safety policy, we don't allow children under 18 in the pool unless they are accompanied by a responsible adult.
Since implementing these rules, utilisation of the pool has gone down to 0% except during the Archdruids Only session.  This is bad news.  But I can confirm that the incidence of pool-related verruca has dropped sharply.  There's practically no danger of drowning (although I note that Drayton can be seen hovering near the edge during my swimming sessions occasionally, Hnaef normally drags him away).  And our regular testing shows that we have the cleanest pool in the East of England.  So our overall "swimming pool success rating" is 5 stars.  Well done to everyone!

Fog

OK, I'm going out on a limb here and making an exception.  Clearly we try at all times to preserve the distinction between our spiritual and real lives.  I mean, goodness knows the consequences if we start letting one overlap with the other.  Our beliefs, such as we are, might impact on what we do.  And then where we be?  Iran, probably, or an Amish community.  But sometimes these things have to happen.  And I guess, if I were in one of those moods, I could probably portray it in a positive light.  You know - something about an "integrated personality", some blurb or another about "shalom" and, very definitely, a tipping of the hat towards the concept of "wholeness".

So, despite all misgivings, I'm going to have to do it. 

When walking down the roads in all this fog, Beaker People are allowed - if they really are concerned for their own safety, and not just for frivolous reasons or as a fashion statement.  Beaker People are allowed - not instructed, not encouraged, I wouldn't want to go too far - to wear their hi-viz vests.

There, I've said it.  I know that we are talking about sacred and ceremonial wear.  I know I am in danger of profaning the holy.  But sometimes, you've got to accept it, people's physical well being is nearly as important as adherence to ritual standards.

So go into the world, slightly more visible than normal, and on your souls may there be mercy.

Health and Safety

This is why Health and Safety Matters. If the driver had been wearing a hi-viz none of this need have happened.  More smashed bottles than Bedford on a Friday night.  But unlike Bedford, nobody was seriously hurt.