Organ grinder and his toy monkey 'banned' from busking

It's a pity the health and safety and the borough council have nothing better to do. Typical H & S. Interfere when it's not needed, and don't when it is. I know, trust me. As a direct result of their actions, the residents of this town have been deprived of street entertainment during the summer, or what's left of it, due to the councils pointless intervention.(They are certainly not acting in the interests af the public who elected them) Maybe come local election time, the public will remember this and vote accordingly. Anyway, if some one trips over a paving slab in a town centre, it's their fault for not looking where they were going. Perhaps we should adopt the course of action taken by the French in cases like this. Ignore the rules and do what you like, so long as it doesn't hurt anyone. Viva La France I say!!!

East Midlands Today did a report about Paddy and he spoke about it and members of the public talked as well. The report was filmed at the Tramway Museum in Chirch in Derbyshire and it showed Paddy playing his organ odd bits during the report. Ben

Sounds to me like time for about a hundred organ grinders to show up on the town common for some un-authorized music production! Even here in the People's Republic of Cambridge (Massachusetts) the local populace rose up and forced a change when the city tried to ban street performers. There's now a lottery system for allocating prime busking spots, but there's plenty of good music on the street corners and in the subway stations. Roger

Terrible!
It is a wonder the country can function when encumbered by such needless bureaucracy. I like Roger's pro-*test*-('") idea!

Its another nail in the coffin that is the UK. We are also currently paying through the nose for the most basic of things. Petrol (gas) is currently over £6 ($11) a gallon. Electricity is going up 9% & natural gas for heating is going up 35%, forcasted to reach 70%! Many Rail enthusiasts are being threatened by over zealous officials when photographing anything in the industry. 'They might be a security risk'! Parents are being penalised for photographing their own children at School sports days! We are taxed on our earnings at 20%. Pay 17.5% in tax on nearly everything we buy. I pay council tax to pay for a recycling programme that I have to sort my own recyclables!!! Or face a fine from the recycling 'police'! (paid for by taxes I suppose). The organ grinder is really the tip of a very huge iceberg. What next? Risk assess the Olympics for 2012 in London!!!! Rant over! Robert :org:

Hi all, Robert Heywood also asked me to pass on this newspaper clip...

it's certainly got a lot of people interested, it is just crazy though. I was wondering if anybody knows him?

Here's what the Borough Council has to say for itself: (basically "t'ain't our fault, we've been happy if they just submitted the form") http://www.ambervalley.gov.uk/microsites/press/2008/08/StreetentertainmentprogrammeinRipley.htm The town council seems not to have updated its website in months, so no comment there. Isn't local government wonderful! cheers, Roger Wayland, MA (where the town is run by Town Meeting, full blown participatory democracy!)

Sounds like passing the buck to me! Robert :org:

Well this is quite common here in America. In my chapter alone we have lost 5 or 10 venues for band organ rallys in the last deacade, and finding new one's are quite scarce. Our most popular and well known rally amoughts the Southern California crowd is the one at Desconso Gardens, we brought thousands at a time and with the Huell Howser show thousands more came(with some minor publicity as well). Then the new management came and has denied us ever since(beacuse all of those people brought damage to some of the plants). Even now people continually ask us and Desconso Gardens when the rally will be(even after 4 years of absence). -Justin

Health and Safety
My answer to any jobsworth H & S nincampoop who wanted a risk assesment would be "Yes, I will give you a risk assesment A) when you have one from that parent pushing an equally large buggy thru the crowds, B) when you have one from the elderly person on that dangerous electric mobility scooter". These by the way are responsible for more deaths and severe injuries than all the organs put together. So Mr. unmentionable. "on yer bike"

oh how the Daily Mail does love to print this sort of threadbare rant. It raises the ire of a certain generation of middle england who just lap it up. Funny, I picked up a copy of the paper from the 1920s recently and, apart from the date, the tone of righteous indignation and ranting against the way the world is going, immigrants etc etc is exactly the same to a tee. It's the editorial house style of that newspaper and is what the Mail readership expect which is why they buy it. Now, as much as I think the whole H&S malarkey is often jobsworthy out-of-control all this fella needs to is produce a simple risk assessment. Although the Daily Mail delights in implying he needs to spend £000s on consultants and produce a dozen lever-arch files of pointless paperwork the reality is quiet different. Producing a short document stating he is aware of the risk to the public that any activity taking place on public propetry may cause and, having considered this and his activity he assesses the risk to the public of his activity to be ..er..zero / acceptably negligable ...is really all that is required here. No doubt there is online assistance and guidance and templates by the ton-load on some easily findable gov.uk. website. Instead of being the H&S martyr the Mail would have you believe this guy is really someone who just couldn't cobble together an utter novice beginner level H&S scribble sheet. And didn't make any effort to either. My advice : a) stop reading the Daily Mail - you only encourage them to write more by buying it and the world really isn't as bad as the Mail would have you believe. b) fish a copy out of a dustbin from last week to examine how the writing style is the same day-in-day-out whatever the news c) if you still don't believe me buy an antique copy on eBay from a few decades ago or more. d) there are good sides to H&S - people are quick enough to bleat where was H&S when things to go wrong... e) read Private Eye instead. As to whether there will be a risk assessment for the 2012 Olympics you bet there will. But if you'd ever seen one for a large public event you'd perfectly understand why and you'd want one too. Think : not only does it cover the event itself, you have to cover infrastructure, threats, policing, medical, power, essential supplies, distrution, logistics, plenty. The risk assement for GDSF I expect would be at least several large lever-arch files worth and involve pre-event round-table meetings with local authority, police, ambulance etc each year typically. It would all be a bit silly if it didn't.

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