"Good evening, you're listening to..."

Unfortunately I seem to have caught some bug whilst out & about on exercises & things these past few days.

I have a gnawing headache right now and my voice has dropped a few octaves.

However this does bless me with what I call my Radio 4 voice.

"VIKING NORTH UTSIRE SOUTH UTSIRE FORTIES CROMARTY FORTH SOUTH OR SOUTHWEST 6 TO GALE 8, OCCASIONALLY SEVERE GALE 9, DECREASING 4 OR 5 LATER. ROUGH OR VERY ROUGH, INCREASING HIGH IN VIKING, NORTH UTSIRE AND FORTIES. RAIN THEN FAIR. MODERATE OR GOOD"

The ladies love it, apparently, or some of my colleagues tell me. It sounds vaguely seductive I think until I punctuate a sentence with a cough or splutter at least.

Looking forward to attending the aforementioned wedding this weekend however - said couple are getting married here. Rather posh, huh? (and at that price/room/night I'd bloody hope so too)

Still dreading the drive, even if I'm breaking it up via my brother's near Reading, but nothing I can do about that. Especially all-in-one go on the way back.

[23:20 - Change of plan. With croaky throat that I hope to get rid of soon but don't want to spread to brother /gf, I'm now going to drive down in one go early Saturday morning... Oh joy]

But they're good friends, and I'd drive the length of the country for them if asked.

Drive

I've just found out I can incorporate watching BBC1's Traffic Cops into revision on an evening.

"One more word out of you mate and I'll have you under Section 5 of the Public Order Act."

I actually have an idea what he meant by that as well.

Damn sight more interesting than starting at another Powerpoint print out anyway.

Talking about traffic, there'll be plenty of it over the weekend. Friends of mine are getting married at the weekend in the spectacularly inconvenient location of Plymouth, and there doesn't seem to be any other option but to drive. Car sharing isn't an option, and last-minute train ticket would cost a small fortune.

Hopefully if we get away early on Friday, and I can negotiate to have the sofa overnight at my brother's (near Reading), then I shouldn't arrive half-dead at the wedding.

Not much else to report otherwise. Bit all over the region at different stations doing different elements of training.

Same shit, different sector.

Work & few pleasures

My parents dropped by again on another flying visit yesterday, car and trailer full of goodies towed over from my auntie's place in Leeds.

As luck would have it since I've moved into this place a few of my relatives have decided to have clearouts and starting decking their places out like shiny MFI showrooms. Spare furniture has been donated to yours truly, which is absolutely fine by me. Besides, I think older second-hand stuff actually gives a place atmosphere, rather than the sterility of something right out of an advertising catalogue.

So I now have a bigger bed and a lovely solid new coffee table. As chance would have it those are just a two of my favourite things; beds and coffee. Good stuff.

Parents has also brought over the biggest Sheppard's Pie known to man and left a good half of it in my fridge, which will last me a few meals. Utterly delightful to come home to in an evening and only have to microwave for a few minutes.

Nothing particularly important to report from the weekend otherwise. A mixture of work and few pleasures. I'm still buckling under the weight of study pressure and expectation. But all I can do is try.

Joy, though - the new Faithless album came out today.

Simple pleasures indeed.

The fridge & the underworld

Some of you have shared your notice boards, I use my fridge.

I use my calendar for all the important reminders, but I can't be bothered to post two piccies.

So there you go.

More interestingly the powers that be reluctantly let us take home our Police Radios for the weekend. We have exercises elsewhere in the county early next week, away from where we are usual stationed.

We're under strict instructions however to...

• Only listen passively
• Inform control if we lose the unit
• Whereby we will have one hour to find the unit before control sends out a signal to fry it
  

Listening to the radio chatter this evening has so far been really, really interesting.

Appears to be a quiet Friday night doesn't it?

Far from it.

And that's all I'm allowed to say.

Tears

The night before the burial of her husband's body, Katherine Cathey refused to leave the casket, asking to sleep next to his body for the last time.

The Marines made a bed for her, tucking in the sheets below the flag. Before she fell asleep, she opened her laptop computer and played songs that reminded her of "Cat," and one of the Marines asked if she wanted them to continue standing watch as she slept.

"I think it would be kind of nice if you kept doing it," she said. "I think that's what he would have wanted."

* * * * *

Sat down in front of the news this evening, probably more unsettled than usual.

Crap day at work, see.

But then...

I began to cry.

(I don't care what image that potrays of a 29-year-old trainee Police Officer, I have a right to be human too)

On the news they showed a deperately sad interview with American war widow Katherine Cathey; she was the subject of a Pulitzer-Prize winning portfolio of photographs earlier this year. It had to be one of the most moving interviews, and some of the most impactful images I've ever seen.

Take a moment out from whatever you are doing and follow this link.

Elbow - Fallen Angel

All the fallen angels
Roostin’ in this place
Count back the weeks on worried fingers
Virgin mother whats’erface

Chorus
You don’t need to sleep alone
You bring the house down
Choose your favourite shoes
And keep your blues on cruise control

All the gelded mongrel
Bear their teeth for you
Drag your feathers ‘cross the dancefloor
Throw your shapes electric blue

Don’t fall to pieces on me

My brain hurts

Even learning it piece by piece, the scale of what we're expected to know is seriously scaring the crap out of me.

Week fifteen now and I've almost filled my third ring-binder full of PowerPoint presentations, lesson notes and miscellaneous reading.

How the hell am I supposed to digest all of that?

Even slimed down to the basic 'definition booklet' which is the core of what we'e supposed to learn, there's still over a hundred basic definitions to memorise; verbatim. I'm not talking one-liners either... Paragraphs worth, for each.

Some of us are planning revision meetings when it gets to that critical time before our final exams, because learning alone is not particularly conducive.

Plus it just reminds me about being cold and lonely anyway.

Which accurately describes the bed also, to which I will soon retire.

Weekend

...And quite a nice one too thankyouverymuch.

Work released us in the early afternoon on Friday meaning I got a nice head-start on the usual rush-hour traffic. Arrived back at the parents' for tea, followed by my brother and his partner arriving a few hours later. The gang was all there, essentially.

I hadn't seen my brother for a good three months or so, as he'd been out in sunny Helmand Province in Afghanistan for a good while with the Royal Air Force. Great to catch up with him and hear some suitably weird & wonderful stories from that volatile part of the world. Nice also that he had his partner in tow as well. She's a lovely lass and I really hope it works out between them now that he's moving in with her. Wasn't sure about his last girlfriend, but this one I've decided has the sibling-seal-of-approval.

Saw Hull City along with 16,000 others at the KC succumb to two weak goals from an otherwise unimpressive Stoke City team. The BBC Match report is bullshit, they were must have been watching another match entirely. City dominated, the Stoke goalmouth was under constant fire - they were just lucky they converted their two shots on goal whilst City couldn't quite.

Come the evening we saw Casino Royale at the flicks, which was actually rather good. Gone is the techno-overdrive of Die Another Day. Casino introduces a leaner, meaner bond and explains the true genesis of his character. Ladies, you'll love his now infamous emerging-from-the-water scene, whilst I was mesmerised by the lovely, lovely Eva Green. *purr*

On an aside, I'm thrilled that both Craig and Green have been cast in the first film adaptation of Philip Pullman's Dark Materials Trilogy. I can now, after some thought, kinda' picture him as Lord Asriel, and she'll make a suitably enigmatic Serafina Pekkala. What, you haven't read the books? Do yourself a favour on these dark winter nights...

Sunday was equally chilled out; lazy Sunday morning coffees with family, then lazy afternoon coffees with friends.

Which probably explained why I had trouble sleeping last night, following a swift 90-minute return journey. Well, all the caffeine, the fact the house was freezing and the absolute roaring gale outside, the sound of which was magnified further by the large wood at the rear of the house.

Waking up and dangling my limbs out from underneath the oh-so-cozy covers was torture this morning.

And so began another week.

You can't fight it alone

Had a talk today with one of my mentors today.

One of those frequent "How are you getting on?" reviews, in which one usually goes through the motions and merely suggests

"Oh, fine..."

(read: Fucked-up, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional... however, they never pick up on that)

So I thought I may as well use the opportunity to actually get something out of the discussion for a change. I admitted that I have been finding recent weeks, the law input especially, very hard indeed.

We talked through reasons why I may be struggling somewhat, and solutions.

What did stick in my mind for the rest of the day however, is the very true observation of how I sometimes handle problems. I'm not always the first to ask for help; not through arrogance, but that I have a need to prove to myself that I can do it. It probably links into my self-belief, or lack thereof, no doubt.

"You can't always fight it alone" remarked my mentor.

True. Very true.

Anyway, on a lighter note, this is the funniest thing I've seen all day.

Click. Click now.

One man and his backpack

My first experiment with Windows Movie Maker, and doing something different for a change with all my travel photos.

Cool, huh?

Cold Water Music

My mood had already plummeted since Friday. I'd been due to go out on the evening with some work-mates but cancelled on them. We had a 'halfway' test earlier on that day and the result I got back was rather disappointing. I passed, but it felt like I scraped. I thought I was coping, I thought I was getting by OK, but clearly that was a big wake-up call.

This ain't easy, it never was going to be, and it isn't going to get any easier, anytime soon.

I don't know what to put it to, maybe it's my learning style, maybe I just clammed-up in the test. Maybe it's the fact that I'm not sleeping well, maybe I just need more good old-fashioned hard work, or more often than now, maybe it's my lack of self-belief.

So I text a friend to say that I would only leaden the vibes if I headed out with them, and that was that. Since I had no particular place to go, or anyone to see over the weekend, i just closed the door and let the weekend unfold at its own pace.

Spent most of this weekend...

Reading through Saturday's Guardian

Downloading new episodes of Lost and Battlestar Galactica through the wonder of YouTube

Weeding in the garden

Food shopping

Expertly finding new ways to avoid study before realising that that may be the key to my ultimate failure

Nursing bottles of wine

Reloading the washing machine a few times

Reading really interesting news articles online

Trawling Google/YouTube for aforementioned cheesy 80's track

Watching V for Vendetta

Playing any relaxed, funky loungy music to hand

Starting reading The Time Traveller's Wife

Going through some old clothes to donate to a charity shop in town

Sitting still, and listening to the quiet whisper of the gas fire as the day darkens into another cold night

Things are OK, if-.

Nah, forget it.

Been there before.

Anyway, again my quiet self-pity is put into sharp focus with breaking news from Iraq. Four British Servicemen are reported killed in Basra.

And, oh god, it's Remembrance Day.

Wang Chung - Dance Hall Days

Please excuse the 80's cheese. I caught a random snippet of this in a store the other day and was racking my brains as to what the hell it was. Spent much of the weekend trawling the depths of google to find the answer with only a few lyrics and the riff floating around in my head. Along the way I convinced myself it was David Bowie, much to the confusion of a big David Bowie fan.

Please don't feel obliged to view the video in full unless you're bored and/or in a nostalgic mood.

Still, cheese aside, proves they don't quite do riffs and mullets like they used to.

Goldfrapp - Pilots (On a star)

Saturday morning moods...

What next?!

I mean, what is it with some people?

"A Christian lobby group has claimed the wearing of red poppies is "politically correct" and stifles debate."

Excuse my French, but go read any history of the First World War. Go and speak to a veteran, you absolute fuckwits.

And shame on you for tarnishing the name of millions of perfectly sensible Christians out there.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond...

Bush just got his hands truly tied by the US mid-term results, and an American friend of mine is going positively orgasmic over the results, and the fact that Donald Rumsfeld just resigned.

Well you'd be, if you'd been fed up to the back teeth with your government for over six years. I should take notes on how to survive it; I dread the creepingly inevitable conservative government that looms over here.

Choice quote from ITV news:

[during his departure speech]

"Rumsfeld looked almost bitter, as if no-one quite understood the war like he did..."

And here's Rummie in his own words, back in 2002:

"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know."

(Answers on a postcard...)

Week thirteen

...And 13 random job-thoughts thus far.

1. Putting on the uniform now feels perfectly normal.
2. I now automatically write surnames in CAPITALS.
3. The stares from people don't phase me as much now.
4. I find myself quoting legislation and grumbling at the TV news alot.
5. Walking down the street I actually take notice of the people passing by, instead of walking along on 'autopilot'.
6. Since we keep a record of everything we do during our police career, I can tell you exactly what I was doing at any given time, on andy given day whilst on duty (within reason).
7. I now rarely go anywhere without my warrant card.
8. The quotient of jargon that peppers my speech has increased tenfold.
9. Being 6'3" and wearing body armour actually makes one look a little intimidating.
10. On any long-distance drive I run over in my mind what the hell I would do if I was first on-site to a road traffic collision.
11. In some respects my life is currently more organised than ever.
12. I truly relish the value of a sleep-in once again.
13. And I find myself increasingly drawn to the 'brotherhood' of the police - that fact that we're all in this together; we're not exactly the most popular members of society and we really do need to look out for each other.

This lonely planet

Interesting sights driving back down from Yorkshire this evening. Every town, every city I passed may well have been at war, such was the intensity of fireworks lighting up the night sky.

Special thanks must go to the eejits who let off a number of airbombs right next to the motorway. I mean that's not going to scare the crap out of high-speed drivers now is it?

Glad I got back in time to watch Planet Earth though and duly spent the last hour utterly mesmerised.

What a contrast though when it's followed by the latest news, unsurprisingly dominated by Iraq once more. Makes one wonder sometimes when we really earned the right to shape this planet so completely, not just for ourselves, but the innumerable species with which we share it.

This teeming, noisy, yet lonely planet... Millions of miles in either direction?

Silence.