Protection

Apparently the Milky Way somehow mirrors the Camino Frances,  cosmically ... angelic protection is available along the Way, spiritually ... the Knights Templar took care of the Pilgrims, historically ...and in the temporal realms these days, secular support is all around, not least from the police, who monitor albergue registers, put plain clothes officers posing as pilgrims on the road ... and come down very hard on transgressors ... all of which makes the pilgrimage safe for solo walkers ... cities the odd exception ... but that's cities for you ...

Another safety issue is one not faced by the ancient pilgrims ... traffic ... a thorough researcher would offer statistics at this stage ... clearly there is conflict between purist rote planners, marking the historical routes and authorities responsible for preventing collisions between pedestrians and motor vehicles ... on the approach to Santiago on the French Way, underpasses have been incorporated into the footpaths ... another surface for the graffitists to express their profound and profane feelings in artistic form ... in other places notices advise that the route is shared and you take your chances on the hard shoulder, with some very interesting road crossing required ...

Then there are the joints ... lots of folks walking with two poles, others with a staff ... which historically may have also served as a weapon against dogs or bandits ... some favour boots to protect against wet feet and to support ankles ... which is maybe an over-protection of a joint which flexes in many directions and if constrained  for lateral movement could cause a fall ... and weaken the tendons and ligaments ...

Developing this theme of over-protection ... commonsense is not always as sensible as it first appears ... take the question of risk ... a researcher, following a hunch, set up an experiment with a car driver, driving a measured route, once with a seat belt on and once without (the illegality of the second run is not addressed, though a real road with real hazards is part of the experiment) ... with the seat belt, the driver increased his sense of risk by driving faster and closer to the car in front ... confirming the Paul Daniels insightful quip, that the best road safety feature would be a spike in the middle of the steering wheel ... keep the driver focused ...

In another counter-intuitive statistic, it seems people who know how to swim are more likely to drown ... because they are more likely to be in deep water in the first place ...

Protection from invisible dangers is harder to find ... WiFi is ubiquitous, its dangers not yet established ... similarly the mobile signals from masts ... the devices themselves ... Faraday Cages exist for electronic pollution free zones ... soon B&Q will stock them ...

Well, this topic has gone on long enough ... time to share ... and hear what you think, dear reader ...