THE THREE ALARM FIRE

Fire-fighter has to be a tough job. They never let you get away from the fact that what you're doing is dealing aggressively with fire. There's no fire-therapist. The lowest, rookie rank in the fire service is still a fighter.

They do have one of the coolest vehicles to drive around in, though. That big red truck with the flashing lights, that's on the same list as Batmobile and James Bond's Aston Martin, I think. But there's no getting away from the fact that, once you're in that vehicle, you're fighting fire. It's called a fire truck, a fire engine, it's painted fiery red. Maybe they should paint flames down the side as well, really keep up that fire motif. Yeah, 70s style, baby.

Fighting fire with fire is a popular turn of phrase, but I'm not sure that it works in practice. In my experience, fire isn’t particularly averse to other fires - there's no fire hierarchy or fire clans, there's no one-upmanship there. They're not hanging around in designated gangs, there's no Montagues and Capulets in the flaming world of fire. All fires are happy to join together, have a party, raise the roof, burn the house down. So fighting fire with fire is really just asking for trouble. It's like fighting flu with a dose of the Black Death. Fighting fire with water seems to be a more effective approach, or maybe a fire blanket - that's the thing that when it sees a fire, it blanks it. Totally ignores it, won't give it the time of day.

When a fire-fighter sees someone rushing around are they allowed to ask, "Where's the fire?" or does that confuse people? I guess it could start a panic. Then, you'd get reported to your boss, he'd discipline you, and you'd get fired.