Posted By Diane Thomason I saw part of a telly programme late last night (can't remember which prog) and they were looking at the papers for today.... one of the presenters said the Telegraph had something about schools being closed because the "health and safety tsars" say so. There was much harrumphing along the lines of "when I were a lad there was 10 inches of snow a day and we all walked 20 miles to school and there was no heating and the school never closed". The Telegraph has a history now of blaming decisions they don't agree with on "health & safety". One of their headlines was about "health and safety Nazis" stopping someone doing something or other, which I failed to find funny, though I tried. Who exactly do they think these tsars are who order schools to close? Who has said that school closures are for H&S reasons? My kids' nursery closed early yesterday and they did not blame H&S "rules" or anything else. They just said it was because the weather had not improved and they wanted to ensure everyone had plenty of time to get home. Their decision, and they took responsibility for it. Good on them. Will the tsars/Nazis who annoy the Telegraph with their disgraceful, ridiculous decisions please identify themselves? Is rubbishing H&S still such a crowd-pleaser to justify the Telegraph's constant wilful distortion of the truth?

Posted By John Lewis A junior school local to me was amongst the very few in South Wales to stay open yesterday. Some of the teachers live locally and they dutifully walked to work and got there on time. The caretaker gritted the paths before any children turned up and the milk was delivered for the infants without drama, despite quite a lot of snow. Ten children turned up! Yes, TEN. My friends young daughter had a great day with a pupil teacher ratio of 2 - 1. It does beg the question whether some of the whingeing people who complain generally about school closures would have actually made their kids go to school anyway. Or is it easier to just sit at home an complain. Rant over.

Posted By Diane Thomason What are we actually going to do about it? Jay, that's a very good question. There's no point in use grumbling amongst ourselves. IOSH does respond to silly news articles, see the News section. The HSE do too. I have decided that from now on I'll respond to any that come up in my local newspapers, or in any online discussions I see. If any of my reponses are actually published I'll forward them to IOSH. Hopefully we can turn at least some of these stories into "isn't it ridiculous? - oh, actually, no it isn't, we were misled."

Posted By Diane Thomason Jay, In all seriousness I reckon we should never publicly tackle JC! He is a valuable commodity to the media and they will make sure he would always win! I'm certain that however right we are and however eloquent, we would deliberately be made to look foolish one way or another and JC would be given the last word, and boy oh boy, he'd use it well. BTW does anyone else think the show has got a bit stale? I used to enjoy it but it's more or less the same material, same jokes and same jibes now. Sorry Dean, gone off topic, I'll shut up.

Posted By Jason911 Maybe Diane maybe, but then I think he has upset enough famous and powerful people now for the media to turn on him as they invariably do. And to be fair to J.C if you have read any of his articles, he is big enough to admit it when he is wrong, but never on the TG show. Totally agree though really enjoyed last series, but this one seems very predictable. I guess that's our fault as well!!! ;-) Jay

Posted By Pete48 One thing we could all do immediately is to stop posting this stuff on the forum. The did you see, hurrumph, blah blah merely gives the issue more airspace. If we are interested in such blah blah we will have seen ti and either be indignant, amused or unmoved. What else is there to say? Don't post it here and don't respond to it when it is posted. Our current President seems to be doing a good job on behalf of IOSH on such matters and if you feel personally that you want to do something similar--just do it please! Phew that's better, just off to have the second of my 5 for today, or was that vegetables and fruit?

Posted By Pete48 J, I don't see it as sticking our heads in the sand. We know it goes on and I am not sure that it matters that much anyway. It is just an opinion that we, as you quite rightly point out, all know is there because we see and experience it everyday. Trouble is sympathy solves nothing and public wailing and gnashing of teeth can bring forth matters of "biblical" proportions. When did you last see/hear a public and explicit (i.e. same page as the original story) apology for getting something about H&S completely wrong? Ain't ever going to happen and the more we respond to the name calling, the more they will do it. This is strategic stuff in my view that will only get fixed elsewhere. I really don't think we help anyone by discussing absolutely every case on this forum. Hey that's 4 of my 5 for today, thanks. (anyone want a green apple?)

Posted By Ron Young The sooner this profession accepts that we will always be blamed for going over the top or not doing enough, the better. In this blame society, we are ripe for it so why be bovvered! We have a job to do, lets do it with minimum fuss and as long as we can go home at night believing that we've done all we can within the scope allowed, be happy. However, always remember to keep good records of all you say and do...