Rules are only for Brits

Nostrodamus said:
What has become apparent to me is that these "foreign" boat probably do know the rules but choose to ignore them. It is only us Brits who like rules and who love to quote and stick to them. We would like more rules so we have something else to winge about but we would still stick to them.
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Yes. To the rest of the world, rules are guidelines - nothing more.

Nostrodamus said:
Brits really do need to lighten up a bit.
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+1
 
Lakesailor said:
That's a joke.
The Japanese tourists here have no concept of road safety or rules of the road. Just today Mrs Lakesailor saw an escort vehicle with flashing lights driving slowly ahead of a boat transporter in the middle of Bowness.
A Japanese family crossed the road behind the escort vehicle, in front of the transporter. People on the opposite side of the road were shouting "No! Don't cross!" but they carried on.
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And yesterday I stumbled across uncut footage of the last Japanese Tsunami disaster.
I was shocked to see how stoic these people can be in situations of monstrous danger to life.
There they were, ambling along just as a Tsunami alert had urgently been announced on loudspeakers, not once, but several times, imminent, 8 minutes as it happens.
None made any attempt to get into a high building or seek the safety of a bridge or higher ground.
I would run for dear life, wouldn't you ?
 
The Germans have always been, well, Germanic when it comes to rules and regs. The below is from Three Men on the Bummel by Jerome K Jerome (of Three Men in a Boat fame) - published 1900. I went to school with Germans 20 years ago - and I can vouch that they hadn't changed their ways by then either.

But in Germany most human faults and follies sink into comparative insignificance beside the enormity of walking on the grass. Nowhere, and under no circumstances, may you at any time in Germany walk on the grass. Grass in Germany is quite a fetish. To put your foot on German grass would be as great a sacrilege as to dance a hornpipe on a Mohammedan’s praying-mat. The very dogs respect German grass; no German dog would dream of putting a paw on it. If you see a dog scampering across the grass in Germany, you may know for certain that it is the dog of some unholy foreigner. In England, when we want to keep dogs out of places, we put up wire netting, six feet high, supported by buttresses, and defended on the top by spikes. In Germany, they put a notice-board in the middle of the place, “Hunden verboten,” and a dog that has German blood in its veins looks at that notice-board and walks away. In a German park I have seen a gardener step gingerly with felt boots on to grass-plot, and removing therefrom a beetle, place it gravely but firmly on the gravel; which done, he stood sternly watching the beetle, to see that it did not try to get back on the grass; and the beetle, looking utterly ashamed of itself, walked hurriedly down the gutter, and turned up the path marked “Ausgang.”

In German parks separate roads are devoted to the different orders of the community, and no one person, at peril of liberty and fortune, may go upon another person’s road. There are special paths for “wheel-riders” and special paths for “foot-goers,” avenues for “horse-riders,” roads for people in light vehicles, and roads for people in heavy vehicles; ways for children and for “alone ladies.” That no particular route has yet been set aside for bald-headed men or “new women” has always struck me as an omission.

In the Grosse Garten in Dresden I once came across an old lady, standing, helpless and bewildered, in the centre of seven tracks. Each was guarded by a threatening notice, warning everybody off it but the person for whom it was intended.

“I am sorry to trouble you,” said the old lady, on learning I could speak English and read German, “but would you mind telling me what I am and where I have to go?”

I inspected her carefully. I came to the conclusion that she was a “grown-up” and a “foot-goer,” and pointed out her path. She looked at it, and seemed disappointed.

“But I don’t want to go down there,” she said; “mayn’t I go this way?”

“Great heavens, no, madam!” I replied. “That path is reserved for children.”

“But I wouldn’t do them any harm,” said the old lady, with a smile. She did not look the sort of old lady who would have done them any harm.

“Madam,” I replied, “if it rested with me, I would trust you down that path, though my own first-born were at the other end; but I can only inform you of the laws of this country. For you, a full-grown woman, to venture down that path is to go to certain fine, if not imprisonment. There is your path, marked plainly—Nur für Fussgänger, and if you will follow my advice, you will hasten down it; you are not allowed to stand here and hesitate.”

“It doesn’t lead a bit in the direction I want to go,” said the old lady.

“It leads in the direction you ought to want to go,” I replied, and we parted.

In the German parks there are special seats labelled, “Only for grown-ups” (Nur für Erwachsene), and the German small boy, anxious to sit down, and reading that notice, passes by, and hunts for a seat on which children are permitted to rest; and there he seats himself, careful not to touch the woodwork with his muddy boots. Imagine a seat in Regent’s or St. James’s Park labelled “Only for grown-ups!” Every child for five miles round would be trying to get on that seat, and hauling other children off who were on. As for any “grown-up,” he would never be able to get within half a mile of that seat for the crowd. The German small boy, who has accidentally sat down on such without noticing, rises with a start when his error is pointed out to him, and goes away with down-cast head, brushing to the roots of his hair with shame and regret.

Not that the German child is neglected by a paternal Government. In German parks and public gardens special places (Spielplätze) are provided for him, each one supplied with a heap of sand. There he can play to his heart’s content at making mud pies and building sand castles. To the German child a pie made of any other mud than this would appear an immoral pie. It would give to him no satisfaction: his soul would revolt against it.

“That pie,” he would say to himself, “was not, as it should have been, made of Government mud specially set apart for the purpose; it was nor manufactured in the place planned and maintained by the Government for the making of mud pies. It can bring no real blessing with it; it is a lawless pie.” And until his father had paid the proper fine, and he had received his proper licking, his conscience would continue to trouble him.

Another excellent piece of material for obtaining excitement in Germany is the simple domestic perambulator. What you may do with a “kinder-wagen,” as it is called, and what you may not, covers pages of German law; after the reading of which, you conclude that the man who can push a perambulator through a German town without breaking the law was meant for a diplomatist. You must not loiter with a perambulator, and you must not go too fast. You must not get in anybody’s way with a perambulator, and if anybody gets in your way you must get out of their way. If you want to stop with a perambulator, you must go to a place specially appointed where perambulators may stop; and when you get there you must stop. You must not cross the road with a perambulator; if you and the baby happen to live on the other side, that is your fault. You must not leave your perambulator anywhere, and only in certain places can you take it with you. I should say that in Germany you could go out with a perambulator and get into enough trouble in half an hour to last you for a month. Any young Englishman anxious for a row with the police could not do better than come over to Germany and bring his perambulator with him.

In Germany you must not leave your front door unlocked after ten o’clock at night, and you must not play the piano in your own house after eleven. In England I have never felt I wanted to play the piano myself, or to hear anyone else play it, after eleven o’clock at night; but that is a very different thing to being told that you must not play it. Here, in Germany, I never feel that I really care for the piano until eleven o’clock, then I could sit and listen to the “Maiden’s Prayer,” or the Overture to “Zampa,” with pleasure. To the law-loving German, on the other hand, music after eleven o’clock at night ceases to be music; it becomes sin, and as such gives him no satisfaction.

The only individual throughout Germany who ever dreams of taking liberties with the law is the German student, and he only to a certain well-defined point. By custom, certain privileges are permitted to him, but even these are strictly limited and clearly understood. For instance, the German student may get drunk and fall asleep in the gutter with no other penalty than that of having the next morning to tip the policeman who has found him and brought him home. But for this purpose he must choose the gutters of side-streets. The German student, conscious of the rapid approach of oblivion, uses all his remaining energy to get round the corner, where he may collapse without anxiety. In certain districts he may ring bells. The rent of flats in these localities is lower than in other quarters of the town; while the difficulty is further met by each family preparing for itself a secret code of bell-ringing by means of which it is known whether the summons is genuine or not. When visiting such a household late at night it is well to be acquainted with this code, or you may, if persistent, get a bucket of water thrown over you.

Also the German student is allowed to put out lights at night, but there is a prejudice against his putting out too many. The larky German student generally keeps count, contenting himself with half a dozen lights per night. Likewise, he may shout and sing as he walks home, up till half-past two; and at certain restaurants it is permitted to him to put his arm round the Fraulein’s waist. To prevent any suggestion of unseemliness, the waitresses at restaurants frequented by students are always carefully selected from among a staid and elderly classy of women, by reason of which the German student can enjoy the delights of flirtation without fear and without reproach to anyone.

They are a law-abiding people, the Germans.
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The German-speaking part of Switzerland too is a great rule-observant country, very similar to its northern neighbour. Only one thing bends the rules ... I'm sure you can imagine what; the following true story will illustrate.

I was waiting on a Bern street with several others for the traffic lights to change and the green walk sign to illuminate for us to cross - to ignore and cross without is strictly verboten. One well-dressed gentleman was clearly stressed and impatient, looking alternately at his watch and the lights, muttering under his breath the while. Suddenly he could stand it no more and at a break in the traffic and the light still red he stepped off into the road to cross. But at the same time he felt he had to justify this appalling breach of ettiquette and lawlessness by addressing the rest of us - "Zeit ist Geld" he threw back at us. And here's the crunch line ... a chorus of "Ja, ja" rose sympathetically from the group, while I remained speechless and marvelled.
 
Barnac1e said:
The German-speaking part of Switzerland too is a great rule-observant country, very similar to its northern neighbour. Only one thing bends the rules ... I'm sure you can imagine what; the following true story will illustrate.

I was waiting on a Bern street with several others for the traffic lights to change and the green walk sign to illuminate for us to cross - to ignore and cross without is strictly verboten. One well-dressed gentleman was clearly stressed and impatient, looking alternately at his watch and the lights, muttering under his breath the while. Suddenly he could stand it no more and at a break in the traffic and the light still red he stepped off into the road to cross. But at the same time he felt he had to justify this appalling breach of ettiquette and lawlessness by addressing the rest of us - "Zeit ist Geld" he threw back at us. And here's the crunch line ... a chorus of "Ja, ja" rose sympathetically from the group, while I remained speechless and marvelled.
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Many years ago I was on a tram in Zurich. A well dressed businessman in a hurry made a run for the tram without taking time to buy a ticket. When he got off he bought a ticket at that stop then put it in a litter bin.
 
DaveS said:
Many years ago I was on a tram in Zurich. A well dressed businessman in a hurry made a run for the tram without taking time to buy a ticket. When he got off he bought a ticket at that stop then put it in a litter bin.
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Definitely not a banker.

You write "many years ago" ... then you would be surprised by the changes in the public transport system's ticket controls - your incident is no longer typical. An influx of immigration, much of it illegal, has changed the face of trust on trams, busses and trains, they have brought other standards of honesty to what was generally prevelant here. Now there are spot controls and the inspectors travel in pairs, for obvious reasons. Last year the railway police were armed for the first time. Times, they are a'changing.
 
Tomahawk said:
Agree with Skipp C

Was in Germany many pints of beer ago.. walked up to a road with a pelican crossing... there was no .. repeat no traffic anywhere so we walked across the road...
The locals on t'other side gave us looks that could kill for ignoring the traffic signal....
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I lived in Germany for a couple of years and being a typical anarchistic kiwi ignored crossing signals in favour of my own assessment of traffic conditions. Didnt just get "looks". Actually got told that i was setting a bad example to the kinder etc. This kind of thing wears you down and without realising it I became socialised. Until i visited a friend in Ealing that is. I stopped at a red pedestrian crossing light on the Ealing broadway while scores of people just surged across the road ignoring cars and traffic signals etc, - and my friend asked what on earth i was doing!

I am now old enough to think the biggest problem in the western world is that there are far far too many people engaged in making more and more rules for everyone else to live by.
I think some rules are good: you should stop and think before you break them, but the world has gone mad for rules.
Sod them all. I am going sailing and in New Zealand you can still do this with no license for you and no registration for the boat and generally only the restrictions and rules that make sense for avoidance of collisions etc. Sadly, i think it only a matter of time before the bureaucrats catch up with us though. Nothing they hate more than unregulated human activity. The *******s are winning all around the world.
(Now i have really depressed myself!)
 
John the kiwi said:
. Sadly, i think it only a matter of time before the bureaucrats catch up with us though. Nothing they hate more than unregulated human activity. The *******s are winning all around the world.
(Now i have really depressed myself!)
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I'm slightly more relaxed about it. The one thing that the present financial austerity has done is made people look at the size of government so as to save money. Whilst some cuts will be made for the wrong reasons I believe that many cuts will be made to the rule makers rather than the sharp end.


I live in hope anyway!
 
Barnac1e said:
Definitely not a banker.

You write "many years ago" ... then you would be surprised by the changes in the public transport system's ticket controls - your incident is no longer typical. An influx of immigration, much of it illegal, has changed the face of trust on trams, busses and trains, they have brought other standards of honesty to what was generally prevelant here. Now there are spot controls and the inspectors travel in pairs, for obvious reasons. Last year the railway police were armed for the first time. Times, they are a'changing.
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Yes, that was forty years ago. Coincidentally, I will be in Zurich tomorrow, but just passing through so I'll only see the airport and the railway station.

The honesty thing was still in evidence 10 years ago. Three of us arrived at Geneva airport and asked for train tickets to Sallanche in France. The lady explained that the journey was a little complicated, requiring a tram from Geneva main station to the SNCF station. However she organised the tickets and included sufficient swiss coins to buy the tram tickets. At the tram ticket machine it took all the money but only delivered two tickets - and we'd no more coins. My wife explained what had happened to the tram driver whose response was to completely believe the account - why would anyone lie?

We then found that the SNCF station building was in Switzerland but the platform was in France!
 
I took great pleasure in explaining the concept of rules and common courtesy to the British idiot in his high powered rib, with a doughnut and kids trailing behind, whilst he stormed continuously as close to anchored yachts as he could get! My lovingly prepared pasta supper ended up on the floor... So no, not only for Brits at all!
 
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