I really thought this story was a joke when I read it in the Mail on Sunday. A scaffolder was asked how he disposed of his industrial waste. On pointing out that a scaffolding business doesn’t produce any waste as it simply erects and removes scaffolding, he was advised that he was committing a criminal offence for taking his sandwich wrappings back home.
Just in case you think it is a Daily Mail-ism, here is the same story in the Telegraph.)
Now, I’m not going to come over all nanny state, as there are far too many examples of this type of b*ll*cks and not enough hours in the day, so I’m going to go off at a tangent here.
Have you ever wondered why scaffolding is the size it is?
The answer is gas. Gas piping used to come in 1 & 7/8″ outside diameter size cast iron tubes, internal size 1.5″. (It came in lots of sizes, of course, depending on the requirement). This was/is also widely used for lighting bars in the theatre, known as gas barrel in the UK, pipes elsewhere. When metric came along it became 48mm. Aluminium is the material of choice for theatres but steel is typical for scaffolding systems.
Thank you very much…
Lord save Ireland, you’ve got a butterfly mind like me!
Comment by jmb — October 23, 2008 @ 2:52 am
welcome to the new labour madhouse
Comment by marty — October 23, 2008 @ 2:32 pm
JMB, indeed. Marty, bring back public service…
Comment by Shades — October 23, 2008 @ 7:46 pm