How not to ask permission to have a fire...

[ilovemybed]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/5339444.stm

a 30ft tree lying across a blaze on peaty ground? Nutter! (I wonder if he's a rambler?)

Perhaps we should invite him here and show him how it's done properly?

 

[Tony]

Sounds more like a bloke trying to get back to his roots but doesn't know how!

 

[Seagull]

Yup, it went wrong for him and , from the public and legal perception,he handled it pretty poorly, for sure.

But, bide awhiles, people do some apparantly silly things, when in a state of high emotion;

He was there to pay a homage of sorts and probably totally enclosed by his own feelings...then along comes "authority" and prevents him, and he probably took this all as a direct rubbishing of his intentions, and all the rest.

What he did, can,t be excused by any of this, but I,m sure a lot of folk could see the way to understanding it.

A "no-brainer", he certainly was not, so lets not be too hard on him. eh?

Ceeg

 

[BorderReiver]

Oh I think we should be pretty hard on him.

Recklessly lighting a fire on peat in a pine wood is about as stupid as you can get.With a 30 ft tree to make it worse.If the fire had gone bad on him he would never have been able to control it.Not to mention the hidden burning in the sub layer.

Emotional is one thing but getting rat bummed and threatening people with weapons is completely inexcusable in any situation.

I won't mention the arrogance displayed by the professor.Oh I just have,never mind.

 

[Klenchblaize]

I wonder what make of “ice axe” he was using!!

 

[jdlenton]

what a Muppet this is obviously a bright man who's grief and drinking just got the better of him he should have done his respect paying in a different more muppet make him clear up litter in the woods and others fire scars i say

 

[Seagull]

Yer, of course he is probably well aware, by now, of all the ramifications of his actions and regretting all that aggro he displayed.

I just wonder if, in such a state, with such a fire, he had a plan for something more than just warming his baked beans.

Grief , is powerful , often consuming and ,as such, surely , something with which people can empathize.
But, no! its just not on, to "go off on one".

Still, the guy cannot have been an idiot, now, can he?
He just did an idiotic thing........who can say?

Ceeg

 

[Wayland]

Just because the man is a professor of something does not mean he's not an idiot.

I have met many highly qualified people with no practical sense at all.

Grief is one thing , irresponsible behaviour quite another.

 

[Montivagus]

Lets set aside the fact I wasn’t there and don’t have all the info…..(“No! lets not set that aside” I hear you say maybe rightly.

I don’t think people in general and uni. profs. in particular act like that if someone politely requests something of them and gives them a reasonable explanation.
Three holier than thou rangers armed with buckets and snotty comments could conceivably provoke such a reaction.
Two wrongs don’t make a right as my old Ma always says.
Petty officialdom gets my goat every time!

 

[beachlover]

Putting the fire to one side, this drunken fool (and drink is NO excuse) assaulted someone, threatened others with a offensive weapon and abused police officers (well, perhaps we'll let that one go ).
He should be in a cell and were he wearing a burberry baseball cap in a town centre, he probably would be.
Should think himself lucky.
Hope the university disciplines him too.

Hey! that was post 666 - the Devil made me do it!

 

[ilovemybed]

Lets set aside the fact I wasn’t there and don’t have all the info…..(“No! lets not set that aside” I hear you say maybe rightly.

I don’t think people in general and uni. profs. in particular act like that if someone politely requests something of them and gives them a reasonable explanation.
Three holier than thou rangers armed with buckets and snotty comments could conceivably provoke such a reaction.
Two wrongs don’t make a right as my old Ma always says.
Petty officialdom gets my goat every time!

That is absolutely no excuse. He went as far as abusing the police, as well as waving a weapon around and pushing the ranger. He was with two other people - what were they doing? Doesn't sound like they made much effort to diffuse the situation. Petty officialdom my rump! He knew he was in the wrong and had the grace to admit it.

Vaughan admitted committing a breach of the peace by repeatedly shouting and swearing, brandishing an ice axe, struggling with police officers and pushing Mr Ford.

The rangers, for their part, did offer an explaination:

Fiscal Ian Smith said: "Mr McKenna said there was no problem camping on the estate but told them the fire was on peaty ground and was not allowed. It had to be extinguished."

He told them the decision was being made under the rules of the Scottish Outdoor Access Code.

Mr Smith said: "Vaughan became very agitated."

Now, disregarding his reaction (I assume that's not his normal behaviour and he was so drunk that he had lost his faculties (no pun intended!)) he shouldn't have been allowed anywhere near a fire in that condition. After all; you're allowed to have them provided you do it responsibly and carefully.

The rangers were employed to make sure the land was looked after and did their job. When things got too hot to handle they did the right thing and called the police. He's lucky that he only got done for breach of the peace. As far as I understand, even pointing a knife at someone counts as Assault....

 

[Zodiak]

If he had been 18 drinking to a recently deceased parent, or a Docker drinking to a collegaue, would he have been banged up or served with an ASBO?

Has this introduced a new excuse for other crimes too? I was smashing shop windows because my nan died threee years ago tonight?

 

[useless]

But we do all now of a lump of land we can go and camp on, as long as we're not daft about fires!

THe bloke needs a fire safety course, and an axe handling course. Can some one here help?

I must agree with the observations regarding his punishment, however. It shows that it pays to have a good title in front of your name. If one of the rangers had acted like this against a university prof' whilst camping on University grounds, I'm sure the outcome would have been different.

 

[atraildreamer]

Just because the man is a professor of something does not mean he's not an idiot.

I have met many highly qualified people with no practical sense at all.

Definition of an "Expert": Someone who has learned more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing!

Considering the wildfires that are being battled in the American west, some of which were started by people with no common sense, I'm glad that they stopped this "expert" before he started a major conflagration.

 

[Bisamratte]

Definition of an "Expert": Someone who has learned more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing!

I thought an "Expert" is someone who has travelled over fifty miles to voice his oppinion on something.

 

[British Red]

Would it have been any different if he had brandished a knife? If so, why? I don't see why threatening someone with a weapon in a wood is any different to doing so in a city street. He should have had a custodial sentence.

Red

 

[BorderReiver]

Would it have been any different if he had brandished a knife? If so, why? I don't see why threatening someone with a weapon in a wood is any different to doing so in a city street. He should have had a custodial sentence.

Red

I can't that there is any difference either.
An assault with a deadly weapon would have been a reasonable charge;probably would have been if he'd been 19 and dressed in dpm.

 

[Tadpole]

Lets set aside the fact I wasn’t there and don’t have all the info…..(“No! lets not set that aside” I hear you say maybe rightly.

I don’t think people in general and uni. profs. in particular act like that if someone politely requests something of them and gives them a reasonable explanation.
Three holier than thou rangers armed with buckets and snotty comments could conceivably provoke such a reaction.
Two wrongs don’t make a right as my old Ma always says.
Petty officialdom gets my goat every time!

I’m so sorry, but I have to fervently disagree with you. I’m a person who has “day to day” contact with the general public. And for the most part, the public are ok, not brilliant but ok, however some people no matter how you ask them, or no matter what you are asking them to do, they get the hump big-stylie.
You can (and most of us petty officials us “mini powermad wannabies”) be as polite as all get out, and still some people just get on their high horse and yell scream spit, threaten, I’ve been nose to nose (not my choice I’ll tell you) with a knuckle dragging person of questionable intellect as he abused me and questioned the humanity and marital status of the past three generations of my family on my mothers side. The spittle and froth staining my tie, from his insane ranting. He was a leading light in the banking circles.

I have been attacked with a knife, beaten up, thrown both up and down stair. Urinated on, thrown in front of a moving car, mostly by what you might consider as reasonable people, nice people, god fearing churchgoing people.
Polite requests would work with "decent people", and some times nothing short of force will work with people who think that they are above the law, or the law should make allowances for them because of [insert reason here]

In this case the guy was breaking the rules, putting him-self and others in danger, destroying property, and risking other people’s lives and livelihoods. If the fire had got out of control and injured someone or killed a fireman tasked with putting it out, what then? At best it can mean that tens of hundreds of your fellow humans will not be allowed to use the resources. And at worse an out of control fire can burn large areas of woodland, destroying habitat that has taken hundreds if not thousands of years to make,

If you don’t want to become embroiled in disputes with ‘petty officials’. Don’t break the rules. We “petty officials” will win every-time. We have the law on our side, and you don’t, all that you do is make yourself look foolish.

 

[Draven]

that's ridiculous.
I don't see how, even if he was drunk and grieving, he could possibly find a reason for laying a thirty foot pine across a fire...
And he certainly had no right to get aggrovated about being told to put it out. If the pine went up, it would have been a serious enough problem, but on peaty ground? Ludicrous.

Why did he have the ice axe anyway?

 

[Zodiak]

Actually why did he have an Ice-Axe or was it what tabloid journalists do best, they got the facts wrong and it was a wood axe?