Diana

With all the talk about the woman herself, on this the 10th anniversary of her tragic death, what’s another tribute?

Some think she was angel walking the earth.

Many roll their eyes at the mere mention of her name.

Me? I think she was a fairly normal woman who took some unexpected and quite remarkable turns in life.

My brother and I drove through the night to be a part of the crowds in London at her funeral. We wanted to pay tribute, but also experience one of the most unique and watershed events in this nation’s recent history.

Diana had vision and will to use her privileged position to do some good.

She actually gave a damn.

Sat in a coffeehouse today, wondering...

Why are there only a few comfy armchairs/sofas for people to fight over, with all the rest being hard-backed chairs? Why not just make all the chairs... Comfy ones?

My heart bleeds

Prisoners are upset at being kept in cells for most of the days because of the prison officer strike.

House price rises are at their slowest rate this year.

Boo fucking-hoo.

Neglect

To all those regular readers, lurkers and those with passing interest...

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry I haven't given my blog much material of late.

Thing is, I'm really feeling the strain at work again.

At times, I've felt close to breaking point.

And I'd be lying if I said I hadn't had thoughts about jacking the whole thing in.

Coming home after 10, 11 sometimes 14-hour shifts (often without a formal break), the last thing I want to do is pour my mind out here when I'm at my most tired and cynical.

And what is straining me, is that after the long shifts, out-of-hours I'm expected to work on my training portfolio which goes towards me passing my two-year probation. That I have had trouble with, because at home, or on my days off... I'm simply too tired. However, there's no two ways about it, and if I deep down want the job in the end I'm going to have to do the work, simple as that. Them's the breaks and that's the way it's always been.

So I'm sorry that the joire-de-vivre has gone from these pages of late. Hopefully this is just a brief break in transmission and I'll get my mojo back soon enough.

Just give me a little time.

Wherever you are, whatever you're doing; I respect anyone who has to cope with work stress, both in and out of work.

It shouldn't be this way, should it?

With rights go responsobility

...And if you murder a fellow human being, you should damn well expect to loose some of your 'human rights'.

I am absolutely gobsmacked that the lawyers for the killer of headteacher Philip Lawrence have sucessfully argued that he should not be deported from Britain upon his release next year.

Rehabilitation is an important cornerstone of our justice system. But whatever your age, if you are an imigrant to this country then if you comitt murder, you should expect to be on a flight out of here.

Anything less is an insult to the victim and those who mourn for them.

My Daemon

Cute moment(s) of the day

So I'm at this lady's house, taking a statement regarding an incident. I'm sat in her living room talking to her and her friend and they both keep glancing out at the green outside casting a watching eye over their respective children.

"Uh-oh," declares one of the mums "little Johnny's gone and pushed little Matthew over."

She goes and investigates and returns a moment later with Johnny in tow who's sniffling and nursing some blood coming from his nose.

There's some cooing, some reassurance to Johnny then we carry on with the statement.

A moment later there's a quiet knock at the door and then a number of children enter the house. There's a few excited voices chirping this happened, no, that happend. Then this one sheepish looking kid enters the room. He looks at me, looks at one of the mums, then back at me.

Suddenly he bursts into tears and declares

"I didn't mean it, he pushed me first!!"

It takes a moment for the penny to drop.

"No, no!" I realise "it's nothing to do with you, I'm just talking to your mum here."

The bawling stops. The mums fuss over the kids for a moment before letting them back out to play.

Little Johnny is still sniffling. But to cheer him up I promise that before I drive away in my police car I'll put my blue lights on, just for him.

Which when I leave, I do, much to his delight.

Aww, bless.

His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass - Extended Preview

Okay, so they changed the name for the American audience. But otherwise this extended trailer looks just like I imagined Pulman's world(s) when reading the books. Looks stunning. Can't wait.

Headaches

Whether it be sinus problems, hay fever or just a really bad cold... I feel like crap.

This wasn't helped by the fact either that I've returned from work two days running with splitting headaches. Today's was so bad I came in at 18:00 and went straight to bed for three hours in an attempt to sleep it off. I've taken strides to make sure I'm not getting dehydrated with the sudden shock of better weather. However if this persists for three days running then I'm off to the docs.

Work is oh-kay, but not as enjoyable of late. Had a bit of a meeting with one of the supervisors and he politely told me that I need to up my figures. Whatever your experience or not, figures count. Target culture is gospel. It's sad really. And mighty frustrating too, just when I'm starting to really get a handle on one aspect of my job, the crime workload, something else bubbles up that you're supposed to keep in check. All these whilst providing a response service to the public and doing study NVQ work at home.

It's not hard to see now why some officers burn themselves out awfully quickly.

1-18-08

Just started reading some advance buzz about this movie coming in 2008. Godzilla meets Blair Witch?