It's health and safety gone mad!

A rotten picture taken through the open window of a minibus, but I had to capture this beautiful example of resourcefulness?

I have been talking to people recently about how restricted and occasionally overprotective society seems to be in Britain. The most obvious example for me being laws against walking on a railway track. I mean seriously, a train weighs about 58 tonnes and makes more than a little noise, I think I have a good chance of noticing it before it reaches me. And then there are situations which remind me why a certain amount of health and safety rules are valuable.

Let me just talk you through what's going on here, because the details are important: the sign advertising this very acceptable watering hole in Moshi had fallen down in strong winds overnight. This enterprising crew is welding it back into place. First of all, notice the home-made power supply, involving a board of wood, to which somebody has attached four large capacitors (correct me if I'm wrong here, sparkys) which appear to have been salvaged from an electricity pylon. Of course the sign needs to be held still while it is welded into place, hence the two blokes standing on the roof of a single cab Nissan hardbody, balancing it on their heads. The scruffy old ladder seems to be fairly stable, although if I was standing that close to the top of it, I might want something holding the bottom in place.

He has no mask, which almost goes without saying, but there is one extra frisson of excitement which you cannot see, as my exposure time is too short to show the sparks: The long metal tube to the left of the ladder as we look at it, is live! Consequently the welder himself, has periodically to stand atop the ladder on 1 foot, and use his other leg to kick this pole away from the aluminium structure supporting him.

If you can think of any way that this procedure could have been made any more dangerous, then answers on a postcard please. I haven't thought of much, except perhaps the introduction of a hungry lion to proceedings.

Incidentally, while sitting in the minibus I also had my first encounter of the whole two years so far, with "aggressive begging". A young man asked me for money, to which I replied (with complete honesty, as happens) that I did not have any spare cash with me, having given out all of my small denominations to 2 disabled beggars already. He then started telling me, in broken English, that begging was better than stealing, that he knew where I lived (which was a little far-fetched, given his surprise a few seconds earlier to learn I came from Dar es Salaam) and that if I did not give him money he would attack me. I stood up and stepped out of the minibus, as I felt I should inform the local shopkeepers that this kind of company may not be conducive to passing shoppers, and upon seeing me to be a clear 30 cm taller than him, he took off like a tiny Usain Bolt. In a way the comedy situation would have reached a perfect conclusion if only he had run headlong into the ladder, or at least the pickup. But the welding crew were minding their own business, so I am mainly glad that they survived unhurt.