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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/05/when-life-imitates-sitcom-woman-pulled-over-by-dog
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| Version 1 | Version 2 |
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| When life imitates the art of sitcom | When life imitates the art of sitcom |
| (about 1 month later) | |
| Picture the scene: a crisp February day in 2012 in Trent Park, Enfield. Actually, I don’t know it was crisp – I just know it was February, so crisp is a possibility. I’m ruling out balmy, humid and close. It could have been cloudy, mild for the time of year, or windy; there might have been driving rain or even snow. Or uneven snow. Freezing fog is also an option, but it would get in the way of your picturing the scene so I’m ruling it out. | Picture the scene: a crisp February day in 2012 in Trent Park, Enfield. Actually, I don’t know it was crisp – I just know it was February, so crisp is a possibility. I’m ruling out balmy, humid and close. It could have been cloudy, mild for the time of year, or windy; there might have been driving rain or even snow. Or uneven snow. Freezing fog is also an option, but it would get in the way of your picturing the scene so I’m ruling it out. |
| 2012 anyway – you’re familiar with that. If you’re not, you’re a very advanced reader for your age. So, early/mid-coalition, Chris Huhne’s just resigned, the Olympics are coming up, Jimmy Savile is dead but not yet discredited, and there are 2.5 million people out of work. Look, I’m paying for this internet connection so I’m going to use it. | 2012 anyway – you’re familiar with that. If you’re not, you’re a very advanced reader for your age. So, early/mid-coalition, Chris Huhne’s just resigned, the Olympics are coming up, Jimmy Savile is dead but not yet discredited, and there are 2.5 million people out of work. Look, I’m paying for this internet connection so I’m going to use it. |
| Walking across the park are two women, one in her mid-50s and one about 70. The younger has a cockapoo and the older an alsatian on a lead. Presently they arrive at the park cafe and alsatian lady, in a fluid movement, puts the dog’s lead in her friend’s hand and sweeps into the cafe to buy them both drinks. | Walking across the park are two women, one in her mid-50s and one about 70. The younger has a cockapoo and the older an alsatian on a lead. Presently they arrive at the park cafe and alsatian lady, in a fluid movement, puts the dog’s lead in her friend’s hand and sweeps into the cafe to buy them both drinks. |
| This is where it gets hilarious. The alsatian, named Lily, yanks excitedly on the lead, probably trying to follow her owner, and drags the younger lady with her. Through the cafe tables she gallops, to the consternation of snacking locals, towing her owner’s friend along the ground like a husky’s sled. Across the grass, between the trees, twice round the children’s roundabout, underneath the trailer of an articulated lorry making a large delivery of Bonios, right through the middle of a marching band playing How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?, and finally into a large pond, causing havoc and honking from a family of geese. | This is where it gets hilarious. The alsatian, named Lily, yanks excitedly on the lead, probably trying to follow her owner, and drags the younger lady with her. Through the cafe tables she gallops, to the consternation of snacking locals, towing her owner’s friend along the ground like a husky’s sled. Across the grass, between the trees, twice round the children’s roundabout, underneath the trailer of an articulated lorry making a large delivery of Bonios, right through the middle of a marching band playing How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?, and finally into a large pond, causing havoc and honking from a family of geese. |
| I’ve used a bit of artistic licence there. In reality, the dog just pulled the woman over. It’s impossible to know exactly how funny it looked. In fact, there is no objective measure of that sort of thing. We don’t know who saw it, from what distance or angle, or in what mood. But it’s certainly something that has the potential to amuse. If it happens in circumstances that you know to be consequence-free – in fiction, say – it could get a laugh. | I’ve used a bit of artistic licence there. In reality, the dog just pulled the woman over. It’s impossible to know exactly how funny it looked. In fact, there is no objective measure of that sort of thing. We don’t know who saw it, from what distance or angle, or in what mood. But it’s certainly something that has the potential to amuse. If it happens in circumstances that you know to be consequence-free – in fiction, say – it could get a laugh. |
| These particular 2012 circumstances were not consequence-free. The poor woman who got yanked, Kay Benstead, broke an arm and a hip and was off work for seven months. And the drink-buying alsatian owner, Annie Finnie, has been ordered to pay £115,000 in damages plus up to £100,000 of court costs. Idiomatically, the whole thing was no walk in the park. | These particular 2012 circumstances were not consequence-free. The poor woman who got yanked, Kay Benstead, broke an arm and a hip and was off work for seven months. And the drink-buying alsatian owner, Annie Finnie, has been ordered to pay £115,000 in damages plus up to £100,000 of court costs. Idiomatically, the whole thing was no walk in the park. |
| “The weight and force of the dog was too great and she fell over,” Judge Peter Wulwick pointed out at the trial. “Mrs Finnie… didn’t anticipate that, in handing over the dog in the way she did, physical injury might well result. In my view, she should have done so.” | “The weight and force of the dog was too great and she fell over,” Judge Peter Wulwick pointed out at the trial. “Mrs Finnie… didn’t anticipate that, in handing over the dog in the way she did, physical injury might well result. In my view, she should have done so.” |
| This ruling is a stark reminder of a pratfall’s human cost. There’s something unavoidably funny about someone being pulled over by a dog, but it’s also a poignant story of injury and ruined friendship. And massive expense. So, when we next chuckle thoughtlessly over hilarious sitcom mishaps, let’s bear in mind what the real-life legal consequences would have been. | This ruling is a stark reminder of a pratfall’s human cost. There’s something unavoidably funny about someone being pulled over by a dog, but it’s also a poignant story of injury and ruined friendship. And massive expense. So, when we next chuckle thoughtlessly over hilarious sitcom mishaps, let’s bear in mind what the real-life legal consequences would have been. |
| Granger v Dibley parish council“At over five feet, the depth of the puddle into which the Reverend Granger fell quite simply beggars belief and to have allowed such an implausibly deep and flooded chasm to develop in a public footpath is perhaps the most serious case of council negligence it has ever been my misfortune to rule upon.” | Granger v Dibley parish council“At over five feet, the depth of the puddle into which the Reverend Granger fell quite simply beggars belief and to have allowed such an implausibly deep and flooded chasm to develop in a public footpath is perhaps the most serious case of council negligence it has ever been my misfortune to rule upon.” |
| Torquay town council v Fawlty“While I accept Mr Fawlty’s contention that ‘every freeborn Englishman has the right to thrash his own car’ and that the time has not yet come when ‘we’ll be getting psychiatrists for the bloody things and asking them if they find the garage lonely’, I find the exercise of this right with a council-planted sapling to be unlawful and that the abrasions to his hands, and scratches to his vehicle, thereby engendered fall outside the local authority’s liability.” | Torquay town council v Fawlty“While I accept Mr Fawlty’s contention that ‘every freeborn Englishman has the right to thrash his own car’ and that the time has not yet come when ‘we’ll be getting psychiatrists for the bloody things and asking them if they find the garage lonely’, I find the exercise of this right with a council-planted sapling to be unlawful and that the abrasions to his hands, and scratches to his vehicle, thereby engendered fall outside the local authority’s liability.” |
| Spencer v Roller-rinks International Ltd“Mr Spencer has been generous in admitting he is a roller-skating novice but, as the rink’s advertising literature specifically sought the custom of such beginners, I believe it negligent of the management not to have fitted doors sturdy enough to resist the momentum of an adult skater thrown towards them by the centrifugal force of the flicking tail of a conga line, and therefore that, in the matter of Mr Spencer’s subsequent harrowing and hazardous journey through the local neighbourhood, the rink is at fault.” | Spencer v Roller-rinks International Ltd“Mr Spencer has been generous in admitting he is a roller-skating novice but, as the rink’s advertising literature specifically sought the custom of such beginners, I believe it negligent of the management not to have fitted doors sturdy enough to resist the momentum of an adult skater thrown towards them by the centrifugal force of the flicking tail of a conga line, and therefore that, in the matter of Mr Spencer’s subsequent harrowing and hazardous journey through the local neighbourhood, the rink is at fault.” |
| Medford v Eversun Deckchairs“Notwithstanding the defendant’s assertion that Mr Terence Medford is of a heavier build than average, I find his view that a reputably manufactured deckchair should still be able to hold his weight for more than two seconds to be fair, and therefore order that he should be compensated both for the injury to his coccyx – settle down, please – and loss of earnings caused by his employer making inaccurate inferences about his lifestyle and sexuality from the manner in which he was limping at a company function later on the day of the accident.” | Medford v Eversun Deckchairs“Notwithstanding the defendant’s assertion that Mr Terence Medford is of a heavier build than average, I find his view that a reputably manufactured deckchair should still be able to hold his weight for more than two seconds to be fair, and therefore order that he should be compensated both for the injury to his coccyx – settle down, please – and loss of earnings caused by his employer making inaccurate inferences about his lifestyle and sexuality from the manner in which he was limping at a company function later on the day of the accident.” |
| Trotter v Neisenkul Holdings“I find that Mr Trotter had a reasonable expectation that the integrity of the bar surface behind him would not have been disrupted during his conversation, and so the defendants’ contention that he should have sought visual confirmation that a leaning site was still available, is not, in my view, sound, and they are consequently liable for Mr Trotter’s loss of earnings and costs incurred as a result of reputational damage caused by the incident. I set damages at £1m.” | Trotter v Neisenkul Holdings“I find that Mr Trotter had a reasonable expectation that the integrity of the bar surface behind him would not have been disrupted during his conversation, and so the defendants’ contention that he should have sought visual confirmation that a leaning site was still available, is not, in my view, sound, and they are consequently liable for Mr Trotter’s loss of earnings and costs incurred as a result of reputational damage caused by the incident. I set damages at £1m.” |
| * * * | * * * |
| Two weeks ago, while bemoaning the undermining of freedom of speech in some universities, I wrote disparagingly about the “trigger warnings” widely reported to have been added to Cambridge University lecture timetables alerting students to, among other things, the plot of Titus Andronicus. Having read an article in the Guardian by Ian Burrows, who delivered one of the lectures in question and explained that it was primarily about the portrayal of sexual assault in drama, I’ve revised my view. I do think there’s a worrying trend towards censorship in some academic quarters, but it looks like the situation at Cambridge was misreported in the press and so was a bad example for me to use, for which I’m sorry. | Two weeks ago, while bemoaning the undermining of freedom of speech in some universities, I wrote disparagingly about the “trigger warnings” widely reported to have been added to Cambridge University lecture timetables alerting students to, among other things, the plot of Titus Andronicus. Having read an article in the Guardian by Ian Burrows, who delivered one of the lectures in question and explained that it was primarily about the portrayal of sexual assault in drama, I’ve revised my view. I do think there’s a worrying trend towards censorship in some academic quarters, but it looks like the situation at Cambridge was misreported in the press and so was a bad example for me to use, for which I’m sorry. |
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