kerry davies

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 .... leMaitre original management should have attended court but they couldn’t actually be involved (because they no longer work for the business)

As far as I can make out, Tom, the same three people have been and still are the owners and managers of all the companies involved for decades. Le Maitre Fireworks became Le Maitre Ltd, then became LM140121 Ltd and have again become Le Maitre Ltd. The management has not changed and the directors at any one time are Mr and/or Mrs Wilson and Ms Cornacchia. There are procedures that the CPS can use when accused persons refuse to attend sentencing but apparently not when it is a corporate entity despite the introduction of the "controlling mind" concept.

I don't know if the metamorphosis always coincided with incidents or whether any of the fines were ever paid but it isn't satisfactory of the company, the directors or the UK legal system. It isn't (in my opinion only) a straightforward liquidation when the company is resurrected by the same people at the same premises serving the same customers with the same product that caused the fatality.

Normal service resumed in the jurisprudence of feudal England. This is a prima facie case for charges of corporate manslaughter but that won't happen either. The fact that they immediately went "Phoenix" suggests that their insurers point blank refused to accept a claim and the fact that the police haven't acted after the 4th fatality associated with that site since 1988 is the really worrying thing.

A fireman was killed and 107 injured, 84 needing hospital treatment back in 1989 after a truck delivering to Le Maitre Fireworks blew up while using a totally innocent plant hire company's yard to turn around in. ICI/Nobel Explosives were fined £250,000 back then. HSE published a detailed report.

Le Maitre themselves were fined £2,000 in 1988 after an employee died fitting fuses to a display and fined £15,000 in 1990 when another employee died while packing a very large firework which exploded.

Average levels would be relatively meaningless as a flat out rock number with dozens of voices can be followed by a whispered sweet nothing. A number packed rock show could well average many times what Madame Butterfly would.

And then ......

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The flood warning system relied on by hundreds of thousands of households in England will be put on permanent autopilot, officials have said, despite warnings it is inaccurate.

I was reluctant to respond to this but now that Paul has been expansive I can be succinct. You are at a school for performing arts where they get paid to teach you this stuff so get them to do just that.

I am not being nasty, just once taught your predecessors at Filton with a lot less facilities than you now enjoy. The more we tell you, the more your tutors will curse us. 

Just checked and thank heavens I did. The kids set my phone up so that before opening settings I had to update 15 apps (what's an app?) but I discovered that they had not set me up for meteor warnings but had for earthquakes. Doh?  I can't wait for this test now that I have turned off all "location" on the machine. Will it won't it go off alarming?

In Sweden in the 70's those sirens were a nuclear attack warning and when they were tested it caused a national plague of merriment. It was something like a two minute warning with an all clear sounding after three minutes by which time of course.....

Oh and my nearest McDonalds is either 20 miles downwind in another country or the other side of a mountain range. Do your worst, meteors.

Hmmmm? This help?  

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You can opt out of the system in your phone’s settings, just search for “emergency alerts”, and turn off ‘severe alerts’ and ‘extreme alerts’. You will not receive alerts if your device is turned off or in airplane mode. However, these alerts are potentially life-saving so we recommend you keep them switched on.

If there is anything worthy of an alert here in Mid Wales 20 metres above the river and 96 metres above the sea I am fairly sure I don't wish to know there is a meteorite on it's way.

E2A, yes they are UK wide. 

I am pretty sure we were highly irregular but the only times I ever got peripherally involved in hiring kit for overseas companies visiting UK we hired it and paid the VAT then reclaimed it as normal. Costs were then deducted from their fees etc. IIRC the supplier of an Olympic standard trampoline wouldn't even accept the order from the visiting troupe.

A PM to ImagineerTom would be almost certain to get specific answers but your accountant may have a handle on "place of supply" rules which, like everything, have all got a lot more fiddly since Brexit.

Ah the joys of Thatcherite privatisation. My amazing phone broadband service is "fibre to the cabinet" which in our rural area is on the wall outside the telephone exchange.

As an ex-BT/POEU guy my fury at the government blocking the "glassing of the UK" because of cost and then flogging off BT at a loss greater than that cost hasn't diminished much. 

https://www.techradar.com/news/world-of-tech/how-the-uk-lost-the-broadband-race-in-1990-1224784

And me I would go full hi-tech assault and use some baler twine and a very pretty little bow. Either that or the legendary small boy stuffed under the riser handing it out when you hit him with the conveniently placed cudgel.

I rather think this is a classic case of "overthinking" and a little simplicity might go a long way. 

Forkbeard Fantasy had a show called "The Brittonioni Brothers - Experiments in Contra-Projection."

There were two columns of Carousel projectors and a screen that actors appeared to walk into, out of and through. There are still creatives who could make use of them from performance art to rave decor.

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The LOLER definition of Lifting equipment includes any equipment used at work for lifting or lowering loads, Including attachments used for anchoring, fixing or supporting it. 

In the case you mention that camera is a load so anything supporting it is an attachment used to support it. 

Nothing to do with your original question but using one inch insulating tape really carefully applied can lift a one tonne load with as little as three full turns. So 3 kg is not a big load and with appropriate safety chains and suitably large cable ties ties they might be judged adequate in some circumstances. I wouldn't ever recommend their use but neither would I condemn them outright in every circumstance.

12 hours ago, Geo23 said:

Kerry Davies

Comments useful, thanks.

Don't thank us, add to the knowledge bank by returning to tell us what did or didn't work.

I wasn't thinking back projection would be needed just for an effect. A diagonal front projection with suitable performer blocking is all that is needed. Flames are flames and keystoning is less relevant than pictorial or geometric images.

A screen at 60 degrees SL or SR allows plenty of throw distance and image projection doesn't always have to be directly facing the auditorium. This may be a case for literally thinking laterally. (Sorry, couldn't resist it.)

If you watch at about 22 secs you can see it is a projection which shows up on the character. The torch, if it needs to be seen can be found searching for "Fake Flame Torch".

Get Brian's book but even when you have all the books, pdfs and calculators you still have to use your own judgement.  Just as when making Risk Assessments things like youth, inexperience, genre, activity, group cultures and much else has to be taken into consideration. There will be occasions when the numbers, calculators, books and guidance says "yes" and common sense says no. I once built a stage for bands which, at the last minute, they wanted to put 19 dancers on.

"Where did you rehearse?"

"In the youth centre."

"Isn't that 80 feet by 30 feet? Well this stage is 16 x 20 and 2metres high not a flat floor. You are doing it on the grass." 

As Andylaser says 200 kids is a fair weight but might be OK when 50 is not because they want to hop in unison.

I would need to see it to make a sensible suggestion but ....... Is there enough thread protruding to allow another nut to be screwed on? If there is one of my favourite bash-it-n-bodge-it tools is a slide hammer or bearing puller and just use BF&I on them.

Haze and smoke can sometimes reduce UV effects minimally simply because they reduce vision but UV still "works" with the stuff it always does work with. 

The only time I ever saw a tiny bit of UV reflection off smoke was one hilarious night with a lunatic lighting man and an industrial burglar deterrent smoke machine but I couldn't even see my feet in that mess.

I have no personal experience but there are HMG guides for the temporary export of technical equipment and I would imagine that trying to explain that an expensive piece of commercial kit is "personal hand luggage" would be difficult. Trying to explain that you wanted to programme it for "an upcoming show" might make it even harder to convince them that it is "personal".

Why not try a call to one of the shippers like Sound Moves or Rock-It. You might get lucky and catch someone in a good mood.

Not a clue but I would ring  01495-202000 and ask Penny and Giles down in darkest Nine Mile Point. 

There is no easy answer because what the school is doing is fudging their own legal responsibility by asking you to prove your competence because they are not competent to judge. No ticket shows competence because it has no qualitative validity and does not indicate training PLUS experience PLUS knowledge PLUS relevance to the work in question. Only an experienced manager observing a worker at work can get remotely near assessing the worker's competence, demanding "tickets" is a soft-option get-out. 

Learning on the job is what an apprenticeship has been since long before they were formalised in 1563, don't knock it. It is the only way to turn training into experience to create competence. 

I can't help you out of the fix but it may help to ask the client what form of accreditation they want. Most times they haven't got a clue themselves and it is their legal duty not yours as you so rightly point out. There is one minor glitch there;

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Schools must appoint a competent person to ensure they meet their health and safety duties. A competent person is someone with the necessary skills, knowledge and experience to give sensible guidance about managing the health and safety risks at the school.

Know a single school which complies? I don't.

It might be worth taking the opportunity to remind people that the Occupiers Liability Act makes it mandatory for risk assessments to be made covering visitors to the work site ... even if those visitors are trespassers. Part of any such RA, IMO, would include security measures to reduce the risk of trespass/provide a secure work site. 

Stuart, Dave, since the OP has a full sized flying boat as one of many exhibits I think that the length of ramp is relatively unimportant. If one has space enough to hang a Chinook from the ceiling in just one of umpteen huge buildings over several acres the ramps can be as long as you like.

Who is building this kit for you? They would be my first port of call as they will have all the required equipment to build ramps with guards and handrails, stairs and joining links. If they really want to clinch the sale they will be glad to design it for you in my experience. 

The HSE website may help  and more detail can be read up in the ISTRUCTE guide though it is mostly outdoor structures. 

This is the government guidance on access.