Apparently, These Days Fires Have Schedule

Back in my day, (puts the pipe in and feet up on a foot stall by the fireplace) fire drills were meant to keep people in practice and make people aware of procedure in case of an emergency. The other reason is, of course, to make that little kid in Year 7 wet himself.

Now, as a member of support staff, we knew there was going to be a practice of evacuation procedure at 10am, so just before the big hand on the clock turned twelve we collected our stuff in preparation and, peering into a few classroom windows, so was everyone else. Now I don't know about you, but when I was at school not so long ago, we weren't told about fire drills because it was meant to be a realistic test of how we cope in an emergency. Although on one occasion, we just stop bothering after the third time the fire alarm went of in one day, probably due to someone burning the toast in Food Technology.

So apparently fires can only exist these days if they first book in and tell everyone when their going to happen. I think this is a very Ank-Morporkian ways of doing things. For those of you that aren't familiar with the great Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of books, in the capital city of Ank-Morpork, the leader accepted that crime will always exist so he set up a guild for thieves and assassins etc. The premise being that anyone who pays tax in the city can expect to get robbed no more and no less than twice per year providing they keep a receipt of robbery. Of course, if you don't pay your taxes then your fair game. Well maybe that's whats going to happen in the future with fire seen as we're now telling people exactly when drills are going to happen so they can prepare and be ready.

If you like maps, click on this one, it's so detailed and there are some things that are bound to make you laugh, 30 points if you spot the Guilds

By a complete coincidence, the whole school was having its photograph taken and had to be assembled outside on the field by 10:30am. I think what this suggests is that they couldn't be bothered to get all the well-behaved kids out by themselves so just organised a fire drill so the kids what sort themselves out. Of course, for the badly behaved kids....well just let them burn then. They should have listened, it was scheduled...