Fire alarm, electrial tests and safety issues - a guide to the UK

One day had to be the day I was going to write about this topic.. It is not the first time I write posts about the British life and lifestyle (like this one and this one). I mostly criticize it and even joke but I can't help it.. some things are freaking weird!!

The exaggerated safety issues is something that worries me a lot and is critically disconcerting. One would think how can that be?? People may think that safety and safety concerns are something good, and they are, but just until a certain extent... From a certain point on it becomes obsessive and it is damaging!


Starting with the FIRE ALARM. There are smoke detectors everywhere!! I am obviously expecting hospitals and universities to have smoke sensors and fire alarms as well as office buildings and other institutions with many people that would be difficult to evacuate otherwise because it would be difficult for everybody to notice the fire and so on.. but c'ommon, I live in a maisonette, which is like a big studio with two floors but no walls and I have, not one, not two, but THREE smoke detectors inside!! And now you think, I live in a flat in a quite big building, that's true, but wait!! I used to live in a 5 room's house where again, there were....wait, ready???  8 fire sensors!!! And now comes the funny part, here in the building since I moved in there were uncountable fake fire alarms, guess what happens? The first one I walked outside, the second just checked through the window and talked to the neighbour next door who told me about the frequent occurrence of fake fire alarms and how annoying etc... the third time I just stayed alert but barely moved, the further ones I couldn't be bother anymore, and the bad thing is obvious.. if there is a REAL fire, nobody would probably check on me because they would rely on the power of the fire alarm to drag me out to the street.. I am currently more or less immune to the fire alarm and I can sleep through without  a problem (and my boyfriend put the earplugs on)... Conclusion: IT BECAME POINTLESS!

Ok, to be fair the fire alarm might be quite useful, yet it goes off far too many times without a reason and I think that makes people disregarding it. If it would work properly it would be just great!


There is one TINY but funny safety thing about electricity, that (probably) only happens in the university (perhaps in other big institutions too, I don't know) which is called the "electrical safety test". This is some kind of test (I know nothing about it), that all the equipment has to pass in order to be used.. Like I buy a kettle or something else which is technically ready to use but I can't use it before that it goes through that electrical test, whatever that is and for whatever that exists for... I wonder if that's just a way to employ more people! 

The last thing that I remember related to crazy obsessive safety issues has to do with a very bad experience I had a while ago and which I don't intend to detail specially because it is so sick that it would make you throw.. believe but never mind.. It has to do with radiation.. basically being in the biomedical research field some of my work involves working with the radioisotope P32. This is a very hazard reagent and obviously requires a lot of caution, which I perfectly understand. Radiation can cause serious damage to the human being including malformations and cancer when one is exposed for long periods to very high levels of radiation. End of story but no, in the university people go crazy about that. It is beyond understand.. they employ freak odd people to check on people who handle radioactivity and to use their personal frustrations to importunate the normal and simple life of scientists like me.. But in the end these same idiotic people throw extremely elevated levels of liquid radiation in a normal sinks, in the running water and say to my astonishing surprise that sometimes when they walk around the fields carrying a geiger counter (device to measure radiation - but who is the freak who randomly carries one anyway...), they can spot radioactivity!!!
I dont know but to me it really does not make sense... it's like so many concerns, so many rules, so many tests, but in the end who is worryed about who?

The point I want to raise is that in the end, to me, nobody cares about my safety or anything, they just want to make sure they are not charged in case anything goes wrong, basically they just want to wash their hands!!! Fire alarms?? yeah insurance requisites, they decrease the price of the insurance.. Electrical safety tests, fire lectures at the university, yes again insurance issues.. Radiation concerns?? yes avoid local trouble with the environmental agency but does not matter if a certain field across the university is fully radioactive as long as the inspectors cannot smell it inside, nothing else matters..

Therefore I question, am I really safe here? I don't feel so...