We have signs for everything. Signs to tell us what to do; signs to tell us what not to do.

I once saw a sign along a walking track advising that wet conditions might cause the walkway to become ‘treacherous underfoot’ – until then I’d never heard of a perfidious dirt track and I don’t expect I ever will again. On that same route was a timber stile bearing a similar sign except instead of warning users of underfoot treachery, it was cautioning against possible ‘slick surfaces’.

More recently I was witness to a sign stuck to the frosted glass of a fifth storey hotel balcony; it advised against leaning over too far because, ‘you could fall’. There is a sign on most fuel bowsers making sure people understand that petrol is still very much a ‘combustible liquid’. There is a sign on my three-step stepladder notifying me that should I ascend past that first step, I risk ‘toppling’. There is a sign near the spout of my electric jug warning me that should I insert any part of my anatomy, I risk ‘scalding’. There is a sign on my container of Napisan telling me that should I ingest its contents, I risk ‘sudden illness’; there is a similar sign on my rat poison bucket pointing out that should I ingest those contents, I risk ‘sudden death’.

That’s a great many signs depicting a great many risk factors that are either beyond stupid or so basic that anybody in their right mind should be able to see the risk involved – but what about babies, you might say..?

Babies can’t read, I say.

It is therefore a parent’s job to ensure an infant’s safety, and if that parent requires a sign to tell them that scissors cut, points prick, knives slice, petrol goes boom and heat is hot, I reckon we need to consider screening our breeders.

Personally, this provides the ideal opportunity for the implementation of my fabled ‘culling’ programme. If someone thinks it prudent to lean so far over a fifth storey balcony that they fall to their demise, I honestly can’t see it as a huge loss to society. Similarly if somebody strikes a match to see inside their fuel container or scoops Napisan instead of Equal into their morning coffee; ground rat poison instead of ground pepper onto their mashed potato, do we truly believe that it would lower the nation’s collective aptitude?

No. Yet seemingly the intention is to have such a well explained, thoroughly comprehensible and indeed foolproof nation that as the people therein, we can go through life having laid down common sense, relinquished logic; having cast off any responsibility for our actions, shed every modicum of thought process, and still manage to maintain a reasonable level of prosperity.

Gosh, what a world. What a time to be alive – where idiocy is not only celebrated, it’s nurtured.

Those mindless bureaucrats at Occupational Health and Safety are indubitably the force behind this excess of inane illustrations because obviously, the more restricted an organisation can render a particular industry, the more safe its employees will be..? The implied motif is an insult: common workers are simply too daft to realise when they’re jeopardising their own lives, therefore OSH have to tell them…

I guess in a way we’re fortunate to have so much signage; how else would a person know to aim a live firework away from face?

I do have to wonder though if the frequency of workplace mishaps has actually decreased in recent years, given that when the aforementioned variety of misadventure takes place, generally, the offending party is quite aware they are acting dangerously – they sure as hell don’t need a sign to remind them anyway.

How about a sign to tell us to stop making so many Goddamn signs?

PLEASE WASH YOUR HANDS AFTER TOUCHING THE TAP AFTER WASHING YOUR HANDS

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Rex Banner

Photography by Si N Edge