High risk

I always wonder what it's like to live with someone in a high risk occupation, or who enjoys high-risk pastimes. Does it terrify them or do they just take it in their stride?

I imagine they must be always scared stiff that their partner will sooner or later have a serious accident and end up either dead or disabled. It would be hard to take it in your stride when there's a very real risk that today might be their last day ever. And if you have children then the possibility of their losing their father is an added worry.

I had a friend once whose husband was a police officer, and I don't think she ever lost her terror of his dying on the job. He worked in a city where acts of violence were common and many police officers had been injured or killed.

The number of high-risk occupations is large. Police, fire fighters, the military, construction, bomb disposal officers, jobs involving hazardous materials, working in a covid ward. Plus the high-risk pastimes like sky-diving, rock-climbing, bungee-jumping and potholing. So there must be many anxious partners out there, trying to suppress their fears and just carry on with their daily life.

Do they try to persuade their partners to do something less risky or do they accept that they love what they do so much they couldn't possibly give it up?

Luckily neither Jenny or I have had high-risk jobs or pastimes. I wonder how I would have coped if Jenny had been a police officer, say. I suspect the answer is not very well. I would have had feverish imaginings of her being caught in some melee involving guns and knives and ruthless criminals. Carrying on with my daily life would have been quite a struggle.

Pic: Israeli police woman

Dodgy doors

I bet you've never given a second thought to revolving doors. You enter, you exit, and that's that. They're of no more interest than a lamppost.

I hadn't thought about them myself until Wednesday, when I went through a revolving door and collided with a glass panel next to the door. Luckily I didn't break anything but my nose was bleeding profusely for several minutes.

When I googled "revolving door injuries", I found they were quite common. People have had broken noses, broken teeth, hip fractures, skull and brain injuries. So I got off lightly with my bleeding nose.

Then I got to wondering, what's the point of revolving doors anyway? Why not just have an ordinary door or an automatic sliding door? Supposedly, revolving doors speed up exit and entry, and reduce heat loss from the building. But does that justify any possible injuries? I think not.

It's interesting that a 2006 study found that only 20 to 30 per cent of people use revolving doors when given the option. I have to wonder why so many people avoid them. I suppose they might be afraid of injuring themselves or getting trapped in them. They might be too heavy to push, or the compartments might be claustrophobically narrow.

Of course you could say the accident was probably my own fault for not looking where I was going. That's as may be, but I don't want to risk another injury - possibly a worse one. I shall now keep well away from revolving doors and use ordinary doors instead. I haven't bashed my nose on one yet.

PS: I was lucky Jenny was with me and she happened to have a plaster to stem the bleeding.

PPS: Both revolving doors and ordinary doors are a coronavirus hazard, since they have to be pushed and hundreds of people have touched the same door. Automatic sliding doors are preferable as you don't have to touch them.

The guilty cyclist

I was astonished by a recent court case about a woman who stepped into the road while looking at her phone and was knocked down by a cyclist. The judge ruled that the cyclist was as blameworthy as the pedestrian, as "cyclists must be prepared at all times for people to behave in unexpected ways."

Well, of course they should, but if someone suddenly steps into the road totally oblivious to what's coming towards them, how is a cyclist meant to prepare for that?

Should he (or she) swerve into the middle of the road in case a pedestrian does something stupid? Should he scrutinise all pedestrians for possible reckless intentions? Should he ring his bell at two-second intervals to warn the local birdbrains?

That would be ridiculous. A cyclist has to assume pedestrians will stay on the pavement unless it's safe to cross the road. If they're not even looking at the road, how is the cyclist to blame?

I was involved in a similar accident in the early nineties. I was approaching a zebra crossing, didn't see anyone about to cross, but then as I drove over the crossing I knocked a woman down. I couldn't understand how she suddenly came to be on the zebra crossing.

Naturally I stopped, apologised profusely and asked if she was hurt. She was unable to answer and I could only assume she was too shocked to speak or was under the influence of alcohol or medication, and therefore too befuddled to notice the oncoming car. In any case there was no visible injury.

I didn't think I was in any way to blame, as I looked carefully at the zebra crossing while approaching it, and didn't see anyone about to cross. But this particular judge might have thought otherwise as "motorists must be prepared at all times for people to behave in unexpected ways."

Do you think the judge was right? Or wrong?

PS (later on Friday) The cyclist has been ordered to pay around £100,000 in compensation and costs, which he says will leave him bankrupt. The woman has been awarded £4,161.79 in damages. So in financial terms the cyclist is seen as around 25 times more guilty than the woman.

PPS (Saturday) A friend of the cyclist has set up a GoFundMe page to help him pay the legal bill. She has so far raised over £50,000. He may need less than first thought, as the £100,000 was the sum asked for by the pedestrian, while the judge indicated that £10,000 would be more appropriate (the exact sum will be decided at a final hearing later).

Still alive

When I was a teenager, I was firmly convinced I wouldn't live beyond thirty. I guess I felt vulnerable, fragile, at the mercy of unpredictable events that could easily finish me off.

I would be in a car crash, or have a premature heart attack, or be viciously mugged. I would never be old enough to have wrinkles or arthritis or a pension. I'd be a pile of ash long before that.

So now I'm 65 I still find it extraordinary that I've survived to such a ripe old age without the expected calamity carrying me off in the meanwhile. How come I'm still here? How come I'm alive to see the 2012 Olympics, wind farms, Louise Mensch*, Barack Obama and the internet? Which guardian angel is hovering over me, keeping me from harm?

I'm very philosophical about my age though. I have no desperate urge to live to a hundred. I don't see that as a dazzling achievement. And as for living beyond thirty, well, I'm profoundly grateful I met Jenny at the age of 34, naturally. But if I'd snuffed it in my twenties and skipped a few decades, so what? I'd never have met Jenny, but then, what you've never had, you never miss, as they say.

I suppose my assumption of a brief lifespan was partly connected with my constant sense of being different from everyone else. If most people lived to a hoary old age, then ergo, being the habitual exception, I would peg out in my prime.

There was no concrete reason why I should die early. I wasn't addicted to drugs or alcohol. I didn't have a life-threatening illness. I wasn't doing a dangerous job. I was perfectly healthy. Yet I was convinced I couldn't possibly reach middle age, that that was an experience I would never know.

And now here I am, with the wrinkles and the pension. And still with a sense of having cheated my natural destiny. How did that happen?

*Louise Mensch - Tory MP who subjected James and Rupert Murdoch to ruthless questioning over the phone hacking scandal