"mckinnon" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...
Quoted message said:Swimming pool bans backstroke Date: March 23 2004
A local council has banned swimmers from doing backstroke
in its pool, saying it fears they could injure themselves
if they collide.
Bathers at the Daisyfield pool in Blackburn, north-west
England, have been told they can do only forward strokes
during busy periods when the pool is divided into lanes,
officials said.
"This is not about threats of legal action," said Kate
Hollern, an executive on Blackburn and Darwen Council
responsible for culture, leisure and sport.
"We are limiting the times when people can swim backstroke
to prevent dangerous collisions.
"We would expect that people would be concerned for their
own safety as well as that of others and we are being
proactive in introducing these rules."
She said the new rules complied with guidelines issued by
the national Institute of Sport and Recreation Management,
and were "designed be inclusive to ensure that all people
can use our facilities in a safe way".
A
I know I am preaching to the converted, because the sort of
people who read Swimming Newsgroup don't commit the sort of
crimes I shall speak of. Most readers won't be victims
either, so bear with me while I look for a bit of sympathy
from the world's swimming elite, for an old splasher who has
to swim in public sessions.
For all you club swimmers who may not know, public
sessions are the annoying times when the club is expelled
from the pool in favour of the sort of people who arrive
carrying a soggy looking carrier bag and with the furtive
look of someone sneaking in to a mucky film. Being a bit
over the hill and yet not wishing to admit it, I have to
swim in such sessions, because I just can't get to the
club enough. However, I bring the legacy of club behaviour
with me inasmuch as I expect other people to behave
properly; but they don'
t. If you should have the misfortune to have to swim with
the public some pointers on who to avoid may help.
The most obvious category to avoid is women with hairdos.
They display herd behaviour, and 'swim' four abreast,
catching up on the week's gossip. The most heinous crime you
can commit is to dampen their hair or face. I did once by
accident, and was kicked in the groin in punishment. In
retaliation I accidentally splashed even harder on my next
length, only to have a full set of long varnished nails
slashed down my back. My wife believed my explanation of the
scars, god bless her.
Don't be fooled either if they wear a shower cap, it's even
worse because it shows they mean to stay. They invariably
swim a stately breast stroke, characterised by a slow leg
kick which pushes the water down with the top of the feet
while keeping the toes and heels firmly together - anything
more would be unladylike. This is of course near useless for
exercise, and they can't understand why their legs continue
to look like jodhpurs.
With or without the shower cap they will regularly
congregate at the ends of the pool for a proper talk,
always choosing the bit where you want to perform your
tumble turns.
Men can be just as bad in their way. Here there are two
danger signs. The first is a pair of baggy shorts, the
second is anyone on the poolside clutching his towel. The
towel on the poolside is the sporting equivalent of a
comfort blanket, and is a dead give-away. If you see someone
in baggy shorts and clutching a towel approaching the water,
get out; you won't stand and earthly. They will thrash
violently in the water, oblivious of everyone else in the
pool, and yet go almost nowhere. It hasn't dawned on them
that wearing the equivalent of a parachute in the water
makes about as much sense as going jogging with a rickshaw
strapped to your backside. If they do make any progress it
will probably be across the pool, when everyone else wants
to do lengths. In a fit of public spiritedness I once
offered advice to one such fellow to swim lengths. He then
proceeded diagonally. I went on to explain the purpose of
the stripes on the pool bottom, only to be told that in 10
years he had never noticed them before. I was not surprised
to recognise him some days later among a group of UFO
spotters on the hills above the town.
More innocent, but equally dangerous is the short sighted
swimmer. I have to declare the reason for my sympathy is
that I am very short sighted myself . In the days before I
found out that contact lenses are perfectly safe under a
good pair of goggles, I was quite dangerous myself. My wife
and I used to swim a lot when we were courting, and she took
the precaution of having a very bright and distinctive
costume so I could locate her in the great fuzzy mass of
pink bits, which was all I could see. This worked well until
one day another girl in an identical costume beat her in to
the pool. I was only saved from a serious charge by my
wife's hurried explanation and the natural tendency of women
to believe each other over anything a man might say. God
bless her, again. Swimmers with poor eyesight can be spotted
by the red marks on the bridge of their nose, and their
tendency to walk in to pillars. Please be patient if you
find one blundering about in the wrong changing room, it's
pointless being a voyeur without your glasses on anyway.
The final menace is the pretentious swimmer. They can't be
spotted in advance, but as soon as they strike out you'll
see them. I call them pretentious, because their stroke
looks more like a hand ballet than a means of propulsion.
Also, they tend to swim with their eyes blissfully shut. On
front crawl they will bring their arm forward on the
recovery as if launching a javelin, but pause above the
water with backward bent fingers, to then elegantly lay the
hand on the water and watch it disappear like Ophelia . What
happens under the water is less important to them than how
they look to the lifeguard. On breast stroke they adopt an
exaggerated glide, lifting the face fully clear of the water
each stroke to display a smile of inner nirvana. It is the
legs which do the harm though. Their breast stroke kick is
three lanes wide, and always perfectly timed to coincide
with your painful bits when overtaking them.
The final feature I would point out is common to all those
types I have mentioned. It is their rudeness. Whenever I try
to point out the error of their ways to them you just
wouldn't believe the things they say. I mean, it 's every
citizen's duty to offer advice to those who need it, isn't
it? I have worked this to advantage now though. I have
offered enough advice to enough people now that, though I
still can't avoid them, they've started avoiding me.
