Page 34 Daily Mail, Friday, August 16, 2019What the blazes? the despairing
London Fire Brigade has had to
beg the public to use their phones
to dial 999, rather than use them to
film fires.
It has now become routine for
crews to arrive at conflagrations
to find a bunch of dopes videoing
the events on their smartphones.
they don’t try to help. they don’t
even check if there is anything they
can do. they just stand there, with
their stupid thumbs on the button,
mouths open, brains in neutral
— completely disassociated from
trauma or danger, real or imagined.
this has led to fears that people
are growing complacent about
alerting the emergency services to
dangerous situations. For them,
everything is a movie, waiting to be
captured and shared. Nothing is
real and nobody cares.
When a recent Ba flight to Valencia
filled with smoke, some passengers
even managed to film events before
leaving via the emergency exit.
Call me old-fashioned, but if I wereon board a smoking jet, taking a
selfie or a video would be the last
thing on my mind.
Meanwhile, if you see a fire, don’t
ever assume that someone else has
already called. Multiple calls help
the control room build a picture of
what is happening.
the London Fire Brigade has
even launched a campaign to
deter onlookers from doing nothing,
complete with the hashtag
#Call999BeforeYouFilm.
here’s another hashtag #morons.THE Ponte della
Costituzione was the first
bridge to be built in Venice
for more than 125 years.
Designed by world-famous
Spanish architect Santiago
Calatrava, it opened in
2008 and has been nothing
short of a disaster ever
since. Locals complained
that its modern design
jarred with the classical
surroundings, while
there was originally no
disabled access — and
it came in more than
£11 million overbudget.
Ongoing flaws mean it
costs millions more a year
to maintain, while many
have slipped and injured
themselves on the bridge’s
glass steps in wet weather.
Venice is a damp and misty
city for much of the year
— something Mr Calatrava
seemingly did not take into
account. The handmadesteps get damaged by
tourists’ wheelie bags
and constantly have to be
replaced. This week, the
architect was fined £72,000
by a court for his failings —
a small punishment in
comparison to the millions
the bridge has cost the
Italian taxpayer.
Responding to criticism,
Mr Calatrava declared —
and I like to think he swept
his hair back in irritation as
he did so — that he had
been responsible for the
design of the project, not
its execution.
‘My work is limited to the
aesthetic,’ he thundered.
Quite the most marvellous
excuse for a fiasco, don’t
you think?
Boris Johnson might have
said something similar
about London’s doomed
Garden Bridge. But even he
didn’t dare.Excuse that’s a bridge
too far, even for Boris
Aha! It’s
one rule
for Alan...
STEVE COOGAN escaped a
lengthy driving ban this week
after claiming it would force
him to cancel his new Alan
Partridge show on BBC One.
If he was banned for six
months, as the 12 points on
his licence would have
demanded, it would mean
the show could not go on.
Why? It was part of the
Partridge legend that his
character (pictured right)
drove everywhere.
Aha, you might think. What
a load of old luvvie cobblers.
Yet magistrates in Crawley
agreed and reduced his ban
from six months to two.
Further proof that there
seems to be one law for
celebrities and another for
everyone else.
Would a builder or trades-
man or district nurse be
afforded such largesse, even
if their livelihoods were
affected in similar ways? Thepoint of a driving ban is
not just to keep the roads
safer, but also to create a
meaningful deterrent for
habitual speeders.
Coogan knows very well
that many movie and TV
driving scenes are filmed with
the cars on low-loaders — the
series could have gone ahead
without the threat of anyone
losing their job.
Seems like another ghastly
case of: ‘Do you know who I
am?’ More fool those star-
struck officials on the bench
who agreed to his pleas. If the
law isn’t equal for all, then it
becomes meaningless.Don’t video it — call the firefighters
Picture: BBC