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Going through the motions

Head Rambles Posted on by

If there is one area where the EU excels, it's in producing standards.

There are standards now for just about every aspect of life, from food through to the buildings we live in.  Everything seems to have to conform to some fucking EU standard or other, which just makes life more tricky and expensive.

To confuse matters even further, they keep changing those standards, invariably making them more rigorous and therefore more difficult to achieve.

There is a big hoo-hah here at the moment because Irish beaches have passed the new EU safety standards.  So fucking what?  The beaches were safe enough to swim at under the old standards so why get into a tizzy over passing the new ones?  It's like there was some crazy competition or something.

In the Good Old Days there were no standards.  I remember the glory days where people would swim at the Forty Foot in Sandycove where is was not uncommon to find the odd turd bobbing around in the waves.  In fact swimming at the Forty Foot was colloquially referred to as "going through the motions".  Probably a few people came down with a bug or two but generally, if the water wasn't too savoury on the day then people just didn't swim.

How times have changed.

I saw a poll on the subject of the new swimming standards.  Naturally I cast my vote [I don’t swim, but I like to vote just to confuse the polls].  The results saddened me.  A whopping 66% wouldn't dare swim if the beach didn't meet the new standards.  Do these people know what the standards are?  Do they know what the old standards were?  Of course not but the mere mention of EU safety standards has them running for the bunkers.  They seem to think that somehow the standard marks the absolute demarcation point between "perfectly safe" and "absolutely lethal".

The sad thing is that it shows how far people have gone down the road of relying on others to do their thinking for them.  Something doesn't meet an arbitrary standard set by some overpaid twat in Brussels so therefore it is de facto deadly.

If standards are so fucking important, how come I have to bring a plug adaptor any time I go to France?

 

 

Comments

Going through the motions — 10 Comments

  1. I goes over to the journo to add to the confusion and no poll could be found so clicked through and got this guess where irish water wants its billions to come from…

    Bills bills bills

    The first Irish Water bills recently landed in the letterboxes of some households. Grant said that customer revenue will be invested to improve wastewater treatment capacity and effluent discharge standards across the entire network, “but in particular where the complete lack of treatment is impacting the local environment and the local economy”.

    He said that billions are needed to be invested in the Irish Water infrastructure, and that its utility model allows it to borrow money from capital markets and invest it in essential infrastructure improvements.

    Some of these projects are expected to be completed as early as this summer, and other works are being progressed this year.

    The Front Strand Beach, Youghal is 90% complete with the main construction delayed due to a road collapse, it said.

    • Good grief, man!  The poll is on the page I linked to – towards the bottom.  Three options.  You have to cast a vote though to see the results.  The poll is also on the front page of the Journo on the right hand side.

      As for the water – people are still gullible enough to believe they will only be paying a couple of hundred in a few year's time?  Thousands, more like…..

      • aah I have a cookieblocker ( CS Lite Mod for Firefox and Palemoon if anyone is interested) in play on this browsing thingy and it blocked the poll..hah who knew!
        obfuscation has now been delivered..
         

        • I can also see the comments now mostly stupid though I like these

          No I wouldn’t swim in a beach but I might swim in the water!

          Irish Water to bring in swimming charges, prices ranging to low to high depending on the flag.

          best though by far is this one bet this chap is an avid voter and is proud of his water meter…

          Considering the volume of water at the beach, if it’s failed testing it’s got to be pretty shitty.
          No sense in dipping in a cesspit when there’s loads of good places to go which have passed the quality test.
          Blue Flag standard is a good idea, one of the positives out of the fiasco that is the EU.

          • I bet that last comment comes from someone who phones Brussels every morning to hear if it's safe to get out of bed!

        • Nice one!  I was using "Remove Cookies for Site" for those sites that rudely demand money if I read over ten items.

  2. We have 'standards' at work. We are constantly being audited by some jobsworth on some new standard that we apparently need.

    It doesn't mean we do our jobs any better, it just means we have to put labels on more things and have less fun

    • It also creates a lot of work for Jobsworth Standards & Safety Inspectors.  We are becoming a society of cotton-wool wrapped, safety obsessive imbeciles.  Safety standards should exist all right but more at the level of "don't drive your car at night if all the lights are broken".  It used to be called "common sense".  Not words you hear much these days?

  3. A recent imaginary audit of your web site has detected possible violations of ISO 26000 Social Responsibility, ISO 20488 Online Consumer reviews and we believe the images on your site maybe in violation of ISO 12231:2012 Photography electron still imaging vocabulary. 

    In case you are wondering they are all actual standards. 

    • Nice one!  I must look out for a few more regulations and standards I can mess with.

      Incidentally, you forgot the regulation regarding websites warning visitors about biscuits cookies. 😈

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