Students

The Evening Standard carried a piece yesterday in which it reported much wailing and gnashing of teeth in the upper reaches of the London Fire Brigade (should it not be the London Fire and Rescue Service or some such?) about the number of false alarms they were having to deal with at the likes of hospitals and student halls.

First thought that was given that fire services spend most of their time sitting around, does it really help in the overall scheme of things, to make all these hospitals and students halls spend a lot more money on their fire alarm systems than they are now? Or have fire services fallen into the same trap as hospitals, trying to run at 99% occupancy rather than the more sensible 66%?

Second thought was of my short stay at the fire service college in Morton-on-Marsh. Most afternoons there was a fire alarm from one of the accommodation blocks scattered around the campus, alarms apparently caused by the showering habits of the overseas firemen who accounted for much of the business of the place. They were showering for far too long or with the doors open or something, with the resultant steam setting something off. Everybody out, followed by fire engine trundling over the grass.

I note in passing, that, as a matter of organisation, a lot of these foreign firemen were in the corresponding foreign army, an arrangement I do not think we ever had here. There was also a splendid painting in the officers' mess by a Pole of a fireman rescuing a damsel in virginal white & distress, a painting which Google seems to know nothing about, so I am unable to reproduce it here.