Smokers unalarmed by scarecrow tactics
I completed a reseeding job recently, and now that it is done, a crow banger is in place, firing off blanks intermittently.
For those among you unaccustomed to farming methods, the crow banger is an instrument that looks like a small cannon. When plugged into a bottle of gas, it sounds-off a loud blast every now and then, thus frightening away all forms of life that have a fondness for newly sprouting grass.
Anyway, during the course of the reseeding job, and in particular as I was endeavouring to remove a rather big and jagged stone, I did myself an injury down below.
Nothing too serious, I would like to assure all. There will be no need for bouquets of flowers and cards to be sent to the farm. I’m fine, really, it was just a graze. To cut a long story very short, a female doctor in CUH, who examined the area, assured me that it was the smallest of things.
Happy once again, I left CUH. And as I cut a dash out the emergency door, I was greeted by the serious tones of an Englishman, and he warning me on the dangers of tobacco. His voice came out through a loud speaker on the wall.
It would be a familiar voice to all going and coming from the hospital.
“Give up the old fags,” says he, or words to that effect. “This is a hospital full of sick people.” He had all the gravitas of Winston Churchill. “You are not permitted to smoke anyplace around here.”
And then, just as soon as his preaching was over, he was off again, repeating his warning of the dangers of cigarettes.
“Smoking is the devil of a thing,” says he, “this is a hospital, so, for God’s sake, stop,” or words to that effect.
Whoever this Englishman is, I feel he has one hell of a boring day job.
Imagine reciting such stuff all day long.
And, to make matters worse, he was having no effect at all. You see, right outside the emergency door, on that particular day, there was this yahoo and he sitting pretty on a bench provided by the hospital, and he blowing out smoke like an overused chimney in an incinerator plant.
The words of the Englishman were ringing hollow with the yahoo — and the reason was clear to me.
You see, the Englishman lacked one, key component. The element of surprise.
The Englishman’s job is a bit like my crow banger at home, in that the aim of both is to frighten a certain element into behaving responsibly.
I want to stop crows eating my grass, and he wants to stop people from smoking in and around the hospital.
And the key to success in both cases is timing.
Back home on the farm, the crow banger is sounded only intermittently, thus the crow never knows when the bang might erupt. So he is always on edge, afraid to touch down.
If I set the crow banger to go off constantly, it would be of no use. The crows would become immune to it very quickly. And I feel this is the big problem with the hospital consistently issuing dire warnings about cigarettes.
T’would be far better if the voice was spared, and when nobody suspects, let out a roar on the dangers of smoking, thus startling the smokers and scaring them off into the bushes.
That’s the key to success here. The message always needs to be delivered with a mighty bang.
