Stuff

Whilst walking around Leicester Square last night, watching the crowds doing their thing at the James Bond Premiere, a thought struck me.



Why?

Why the hell would fully grown men and women queue up for literally hours and hours for the chance to see a glimpse of the back of a minor Royal or an actor from a film?

I mean, it's not even as though they get to see the bloody film.

All they get to see is a group of yellow clad PCs getting progressively more bored, cold and grumpy, stood on a fixed point in hi-viz hell waiting for a question that doesn't start "Can you tell me where I can find..."

There has to be a sane reason why so many people do it, please can someone tell me it?



By the way, I have been trawling the blogosphere, and have discovered (or re-discovered) Police and Law Enforcement blogs in abundance. I am slowly updating my linky sidebar. Any that you know of, please let me know.
I have also noticed that although I have found many for the UK, US and Canada, I've found none for either Australia or for the Guards in Eire. Does anyone know of any?

Smiley Happy People

Just a quick post - The past couple of days I've spent mainly on foot, dealing with a large variety of dribbling, drunken, stoned illiterate wrecks whilst trying to keep my sanity.
And no, this time I am not referring to the senior management team.

Dealing with wasted people is par for the course, and can be funny - but after many, many hours of it even the most saintly Police Officer finds his or her patience ebbing away. Days of it and a snarl becomes the appropriate response.
With the people that have gone beyond mildy abusive, into all out fight anyone mode, we have the delicate situation of trying to perform our duties as Constables and keep the peace, whilst also bearing in mind the "try not to nick anyone" missives from the senior management team.
After all, it's family fun for all.

All this whilst sweating in full uniform, long sleeve shirt, protective vest, hat and (of course) the wonderful sweat suit that is the high-viz jacket.
In August.

"Job" readers will probably know what I have been doing at work for the past two days.
Non job readers, please see this post and look up "Not Carnival Related" about halfway down.

Joy of joys - back again tomorrow.

Tired now, so straight to bed. Up at 0400hours to do it all again.

Bomb Car

Ah, the joys of the "Bomb Car." I have no idea if our County Mounty Cousins have this pleasure, but I'm sure my Met Colleagues will know what I am talking about.

For the uninitiated, depending on the terrorist threat at the time each borough will put out a bomb car, with list of vulnerable or critical sites to visit, in a random order over the course of a tour of duty. The bomb car is not available for calls unless related to their core task - eg unexploded bombs or threats etc.

Don't worry though - they give us a bag with a loudhailer and two rolls of tape, so in the case of a terrorist attack we are fully prepared. And our hi-viz jackets of course.

The lovely thing about the callsign is that not only are you given a break from the endless calls, you also actually get a chance to be proactive, something that really never happens usually except for between the hours of 0300hours and 0500hours. When, of course, there is a huge amount of people about to stop...

So we wander around the borough, stopping random cars and people for anti-terror checks. Funnily, most members of public are very supportive when we tell them why we are stopping them (and sometimes searching them), to deter terrorism is a popular aim through most of society.
There is usually an embarrassing moment though, when Mr and Mrs nice who you have stopped in their Ford Mondeo ask the crucial question: "If it turned out we were strapped up with explosives, what would you do?"
Er...

Well, we've got this bag you see...


Our sites have to remain secret of course, but there are obvious targets and not so obvious ones. I always like to pop over to the Army barracks and tell the guys standing with SA80s that we are here to protect them from terrorists. If they fail to show the appropriate level of respect, I often get out the bomb car bag. The rolls of tape do it every time.

I can see it in their eyes, the squaddies wishing we had been there with our loudhailer and rolls of tape to help them out when they were in Iraq.

So I had a successful set of bomb car duties. No terrorists found, but a couple of self generated arrests, a decent amount of traffic process (no insurance and no D/L) and a chance to put the hat on and actually do some foot patrol.

Anyway, back to the domestics now...




As a side note, Twinings emailed me about his post on Burma. Check it out and leave a comment - and does anyone know if someone has started one of those government petition things about it yet?