Snow Business

The UK Health and Safety Act is seen by the inhabitants of the Sceptred Isle as a nemesis to tradition, common sense and old-fashioned fun.

School sports’ day are cancelled, homeowners are banned from cleaning the pavement outside their front door of snow, traditional games such as rolling big bits of cheese down a hill are outlawed – all because of fears that it could breach the above-mentioned law.

At the forefront of this hugely exaggerated battle against any form of potential danger is the health and safety officer, usually accompanied, in people’s imagination at least, by a clipboard and a knowing sneer.

If any of you fail to believe this then the experiment of bringing a health and safety officer to Kosovo would confirm the claim.

It, however, might be at the cost of his, and it is usually a his, sanity. From the minute the officer lands at Pristina Airport to the second they leave, their head will be spinning from one trap to another.

But he may also be amazed at how Kosovars have acclimatised themselves to living in these conditions without succumbing to a serious injury at every step. We all know the dangers: from open manholes across streets, dozens of candles accompanying the gas cooker during blackouts, to more subtle, but lifethreatening ones, such as landmines.

It’s only when small things, which seem ludicrously unchallenging, happen in the UK that I realise what a great job Kosovars have done in just getting by despite those obviously serious obstacles.

I was recently forced to evacuate from the laboratory due to some water spillage. Tucked in my lab coat while waiting outside the corridor of the department for the “slipping hazard” to dry out, I started to indulge in the mesmerising snowy photos of Pristina emerging on Facebook.

Judging from the photos and the claims of people in Pristina, it appears that this was possibly one of the heaviest snowfalls the capital has seen in a long while.

This reminded me of the situation in Hull last year when a similar, but much less severe, snowfall covered the UK.It felt like everything had stopped on the island.

Train cancellations due to “collision hazard” from frozen rail tracks, blocked traffic due to panic, “dehydration hazards” due to frozen water pipes and a dysfunctional underground due to reasons that remain unclear to me.

The “chaos” was diligently being addressed by road gritters, the fire brigades and the police, but it remained chaos in the minds of Britons.

Reports from Pristina suggest the pavements of the capital are now more suited to Olympic luging than walking.

What is evident is the fact that apart from the closure of schools for few days at the orders of the authorities, other civil servants and the private sector have managed to continue life as close to normal as possible.

The contrast to the Brits is striking, but it also enables us to understand the fact that when the state fails to provide for its citizens they make their own arrangements.

Many times this comes at the cost of health and safety.But while we’d all be happy to see those manhole covers closed and more grit on the pavements, I doubt any of us would want to embrace the rule of the Health-and-Safety officer.