there was at best only scant attention being paid to the brief.
I think you will find that that is the norm in any safety brief. Like others on this thread, regardless of whether I've been flying for 250 years and have had all this wonderful professional experience, I always listen to, and pay attention to the brief. This is possibly because I have studied disasters as part of my degree and have continued to take an interest in these things. You never know, the next time, it might be me, and I want to know what to do and how to do it in order to preserve the life of myself and my loved-ones and to help others if I can. Perhaps the fact that my Dad was a London firefighter has something to do with it as well!