Those wonderfully helpful health and safety people are at it again - looking out for us in the community, knowing full well that we are completely incapable of breathing without needing a six week course of health and safety training first, just to ensure we don't breath in again instead of out and end up inflating ourselves to silly proportions. Or worse still, forgetting to breath in and continually trying to breath out, eventually causing our expiration.



This time they are concerned for our hearing and are insisting that performers at the Proms are to virtually enlist in health and safety training so that they are equipped with the ability to measure decibels and put up barriers between musicians to protect each other from loud crescendos. In other words, could they turn it down a bit please?

The equally wonderful and all encompassing European Union have passed a directive earlier in the year stating that the BBC is responsible for the level of noise that musicians are subjected to and they should not go above a certain level. This has brought extra cost and wasted time to the BBC who have had to subject staff to health and safety training in order to keep the music down to a dull roar.

Is it just me or isn't the proms all about rousing classical music that stirs the emotions and blasts the eardrums?

This move is more out of concern for the performers than the listeners as they are not listening to these levels of noise for one performance but a whole week. Spacing between musicians will overcome some of the problem by putting up barriers and seating them at different levels so that no one player has a noisy instrument right in their ear.

The EU directives also limit the time allowed for rehearsals and insists upon extra large space when rehearsals are taking place. So, your night out at the proms may look like a bit of a mish mash with musicians seated all over the place and it might sound a little wayward because of the lack of practice and it might not be so loud but at least you can rest assured that the health of the musicians eardrums is sound - unlike all the previous generations who have had, actually, no problems with their hearing.

I suppose it is possible that they could change their playlist, maybe going with something more like Whispering Grass or The Sound Of Silence but certainly not Bang Bang by Cher or Shout by Lulu.

The Proms are billed as the biggest classical musical festival in the world. Will it be quite the same if it's all toned down a bit? I doubt it.

Other news from the realms of those who haven't had the appropriate health and safety training to continue in the field of work includes the organ grinder and his stuffed toy monkey. A familiar sight on the streets of Derbyshire, the sixty four year old has to undergo a risk assessment for health and safety officials at the local council before he can continue to entertain the locals. He is in good company though as a Punch and Judy show was recently axed for failing to meet health and safety standards. Well, it is understandable given the violent nature of a Punch and Judy act - all that sausage stealing and truncheon wielding is a bad influence on the delicate minds of young children these days!