That was the week that was! If you can remember a television programme with that name then you will be old enough to have been watching TV in the time before Parker Knoll introduced the recliner chairs for sale in the UK.
It was a show that took a very caustic look back at the weeks events before 24 hour rolling news programmes which nowadays just repeat everything every 15 minutes. I just wonder what fun they would have had on That was the week that was which became nicknamed TW3 because if the 3 “T’s and 1 “W” in the title.
Just think of what a historic week it was an ex cabinet minister and his ex wife sat side by side in the dock before standing to be sentenced to 8 months in prison each for perverting the course of justice, the only thing wrong is that it should have been 8 years not 8 months! Then history is made when a new Pope is elected and he is from South America, from the UK’s point of view it couldn’t get worse as he is from Argentina and is a firm believer that the Falklands should be handed over to Argentina. Now we now we can beat them in a real fight but getting God on their side means they have an unfair advantage, will we have to send the Archbishop of Canterbury into battle against Pope Francis.
Then at the end of the week the news broke that Bosch had supplied dishwashers over a period of time that had developed a serious fault that could create fires and despite all of their efforts to contact the owners of the nearly 700,000 that had been sold nearly half a million machines were still unaccounted for! Apparently over 200 deaths were attributed to fires that had been started by these machines and this comes on top of the stories of dangerous appliances produced Beko that could burst into flames at any time from tumble dryers through to cookers, fridges and fridge freezers. You do not know how safe products that are offered for sale are do you?
The story that no one seems to cover though and probably even TW3 would not have covered is the continuously rising death toll from the effects of carbon monoxide poisoning. Known as the silent killer the dangers from these toxic fumes are so rarely mention that the public is not aware of just how lethal they are! So many people are lost to carbon monoxide poisoning that it is now being discussed by the EU on ways to make people throughout the area covered by the European Parliament.
In a recent meeting in Brussels many speakers talked about ways to improve the awareness of dangers of CO , this meeting was chaired by Jim Higgins a Irish member of the European Parliament and he started the meeting by telling the delegates of the alarming number of deaths by CO then opened up the meeting for discussion by the delegates, amongst whom were Gordon Samuel who runs a web site katiehaines.com which he started in memory of his daughter who passed away in 2010. Her death was caused by a faulty boiler emitting carbon monoxide. He advocates much more stringent testing for boilers in the home, it is still possible for boilers on occasions to be used despite having been diagnosed as having a fault. If these appliances were switched off completely until they had been confirmed absolutely safe many more lives could be saved.
Having lost her son in 1985 due to CO intoxication Molly Maher co founded ‘CO-Gas Safety to make people more aware of the silent killer that can affect any home and called at this meeting for manufacturers of CO alarms to improve them especially with a view of them coming to the end of their useful life. She cited Honeywell as being one of the manufacturers producing good alarm systems but stated that not all other manufacturers came up to the same standard.
We must all become aware of CO it is a killer, never never have a barbeque indoors because of bad weather or take a slowly smouldering bbq inside at the end of an evening to use as a means of keeping warm, this is when it is at its most dangerous and should you do anything as foolish as this the best you can hope for is that you are only ill but it is much more likely that someone in the group if not all will finish up dying as a result of the fumes given off.
It would be very sensible to make it a legal requirement for all new build properties, whatever they are, offices, shops, hospitals or homes to be fitted with the highest possible standard of Carbon monoxide detector alarms. The rest of us should really , if you have not already done it, fit an audible alarm and follow the manufacturers instructions to fit it in the correct position at the height required. Carbon monoxide is lighter than air and as a consequence it rises if you fit the alarm to low down it might well be too late for you by the time it goes off!
If you fit a carbon monoxide alarm then like your fire alarm, make sure you test it once a month to check it is working it would be stupid to fit one and forget it only to die because the battery had run out or because the alarm itself was beyond its working life.
I am sure that the presenters of that was the week that was would have had a great time making fun of the stories in the news this week but I wonder if they would have had time to make the silent killer into a story worth telling!
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