~ s n a p s h o t s ~

Over & Out

2009-08-27T15:30:00.004+01:00

Blogging has become infintely more difficult for me in recent months, hence the complete and utter lack of updates.

It's not that I have a lack of interesting stories from my work and personal life, far from it in fact, it's just that those tales cannot be posted to a global audience anymore. I'm terrified of jeapordising my work and my relationship; I value both far too much.

I'm grateful for the friends I've made through this blog; you know who you are, and you know how to get hold of me in the future. Fellow bloggers - I admire your courage and your writing and I'll continue to read in the future. Keep at it; I'm just sorry I don't have that courage myself any more.

These posts will remain though, I shan't be hitting the big delete button just yet.

Goodbye, and thank you.

Finding someone

2009-05-27T12:48:00.006+01:00

Like a number of other bloggers I've been thinking allot about whether to keep this online journal going.

It becomes tricky when you truly begin to know your audience, readers become true friends, and you realise that anything you vent out into the ether can actually have consequences.

But in the meantime I'm still here.

At least once of you was curious as to one of the subjects I touched upon in my last post, and I did promise a follow-up.

I came out of a two-year relationship last winter. Love and great times were shared but sadly we decided to part. I couldn't have wished for a more amicable split, and I feel blessed that I've gained a true friend who'll remain just that in the future.

It took me an awfully long time to venture back into the dating game, but as spring slowly turned into an early summer the time felt right to dip a toe into the water.

Still being of limited confidence after all these years, I decided to play to my strengths and joined uniformdating.com. Put basically, it's a dating site for those in the uniformed services (Police, Ambulance/NHS, Fire, Army, RAF, Navy) to meet other uniformed services, or 'civvies', and vice-versa.

The Yorkshireman in me managed to find an online promotional code giving me a month's free membership (which was a bonus). Joining the site was simple enough, however setting up a profile and choosing a suitable photo must have taken half an ice age. See, those who know me will know that one trait I despise in people is arrogance. I'm generally uncomfortable to crow about my own achievements and merits, so just how was I going to sell myself to any potential date?

Hours of staring at a blank cursor flashing on the monitor finally paid off and I put myself out there. Time to sit back, wait, an to be honest not expecting much interest to come trickling back.

But, lo and behold, women started to view my profile. Success! I hear you cry. However, not strictly not the case. Did they not read that I wasn't looking for women over 40? I mean, no offence. I've dated women a few years older but I would most certainly draw the line at a decade now. A few polite excuses were in order. The other problem was that the more interesting women quite literally lived at the other end of the country. I've done the long distance (read transcontinental) thing before and it ain't easy at all.

About a week later however I was messaged by someone a mere 20 miles away. For the purposes of anonymity in this journal I will refer to her as she.

She was attractive, fun, intelligent and bubbly. Even more surprisingly she wanted to meet me. I checked a few times. Yep, she was talking me.

Crikey.

We arranged to meet at a local chain-pub for our first date. Suffice to say you can tell things are going well that you're so deep in conversation that three hours pass in the blink of an eye. Indeed she was attractive, fun, intelligent and bubbly in person.

Wow.

Mentally checked again, oh my god it was me she had wanted to meet.

Date two would have been a lot sooner had I not contracted a pleasant case of conjunctivitis and a particularly chesty cough (I blame a stop search of a suspicious male I did who didn't quite have the best bodily hygiene shall we say). However she demonstrated great patience in waiting for me to get well again.

We arranged to meet again.

The rest you can say is history.

Some two months later and things are going very well indeed. We spend as much time together as work allows. We share similar passions in life, yet she's opening my eyes to new things.

One night she told me she loved me. I was blindsided. I never expected to hear someone look into my eyes and say that ever again. I too have fallen in love with her.

Quite simply she has been the most wonderful surprise. Without sounding cliched I feel like the luckiest man in the world. I expected a long trail of unsuccessful dates. She certainly sounded like she had experienced just that. But to strike lucky first time? I mean, really, what are the chances?

I don't have many exes to speak of, but at least a couple of them remain good close friends.

As I said to one of them recently "Each love is unique."

Treasure each love, mourn it's loss, but dare surrender yourself to the promise of something new.

Hopefully I am proof positive that it is possible.

Anon

2009-04-28T19:58:00.003+01:00

I find these days that I have to be carefully what I write.

I can't really talk about work these days, which sort of deprives me of a major source of material. Ever since I got discovered by some back-stabber who saw it fit to go straight to a superior without perhaps having a word in my ear, I basically can't mention... Well... Pretty much anything of the day to day life of a response officer in a rural county. Really it is quite frustrating. I have the utmost respect for the police bloggers out there, however I simply do not have the anonymity. I'm fairly sure some colleagues googled my late colleague Stacey and ended up finding the tribute I wrote back in 2007, and then putting 2 and 2 together. Though I'd rather have remained anonymous, that's one post I could never, ever delete.

I'd like to talk more about personal issues as well, but again to the small band of you who read this. Hell, you actually know me in person. Which makes it easier, yet harder to share.

What has happened in recent weeks?

Plain clothes policing
Unmarked cars
15hr shifts
Drug seizures
Internet dating
Blind date
New girlfriend

Pick one. I'll try to elaborate if I can.

Newswipe

2009-04-13T22:07:00.001+01:00

Absolutely spot on. Charlie Brooker rocks!

If you haven't already seen this - seek out more on BBC4, Youtube, or his excellent Guardian columns.

Protest

2009-04-01T23:12:00.004+01:00

Unusual perhaps for a copper, but I'm all in favour of protest.

Up to a point.

Free speech, free press in this country is something we should all be extremely proud of.

Anarchists hijacking peaceful protests though is hardly a surprise these days, but the scrum of media and photographers surrounding those few protesters who stormed the RBS building was a frankly ridiculous sight.

Three or four protesters actually doing the damage and what looked like twenty-plus camera lenses early snapping every move.

Now that's corageous journalism.

Protestor to BBC:

"We've tried to go along this route, protesting peacfully..."

Fair enough.

"We've been angry, but you can understand that we've been angry..."

D'oh, you said it!

"And basically the police have come along here and hemmed us in on all sides... We can't get out. No-one can go out, no-one can come in."

BBC "Can I just ask - why are you here, why are you protesting?"

"I think the government have made an absolute ass of themselves, and look what they're doing, they're encouraging the police to be violent."

Hmmm. To be honest looks like it was all hunky-dory until your anarchist mates stired things up by redecorating the RBS foyer. Perhaps you should ask the Climate Camp up the road for a (ahem) crash course in sensible protest 101?

Meanwhile I'm going to go and seek out for my home-office approved Urban Violence course.

I never knew we had one.

New digs pics

2009-03-29T17:13:00.009+01:00

A full set is up on my facebook page, but if you're not of that persuasion, here's a few to peruse.

Location, location, location

2009-03-24T21:24:00.005Z

One month on from the move and, without tempting fate here, I can resoundingly say it's been a move for the better.

I would have blogged several weeks ago if it hadn't have been for the bickering between BT and Virgin Media which delayed my Internet connection for almost a month.

One annoying thing about moving is that all the utility providers generally keep referring you to their website for more information. Not very helpful when you don't have a connection. Asking to speak to a human being seems like a very big ask to them at times.

But anyway, I digress.

The new digs!

Firstly, although the rent is considerable jump from what I was paying for my last place... What new levels of comfort I can now experience! Heating that warms the place up within mere minutes; double-glazing and insulation that actually encourages the heat to hang around for a while. Good-god, I have a a garage... A hallway now and everything. Eat your heart out Donald Trump...

Seriously though, the new flat is most definitely worth the expense.

It's incredibly modern and trendy for a northern type like me, you see. Spotlights, extractor fans, skylights, blinds, cctv door cameras... Lots of shiny buttons and things. There's a sitcom in here waiting to be filmed.

Once you see the pictures I expect to get comments along the line of "bachelor pad" don't you worry.

But furnishings aside I think I'm benefiting most from the location - a mere 12 miles from work versus some 25 I had to drive before. I'm saving petrol, mileage but even more critically... Time. An extra 20 minutes may not sound like much, but believe you me, at the end of a 12-hour day it can feel like an eternity.

With the location also come the people. having lived in a cul-de-sac before I got to know my neighbours really well, whereas here residents here are always moving past or through. Those I've met seem pleasant enough however.

I actually have friends and colleagues living in the same neighbourhood now too. Hell, at this rate I'm in real danger of developing a social life again.

All-in-all then...

So far, so good.

Röyksopp - 'Happy Up Here'

2009-03-24T00:12:00.001Z

A great Royksopp track with a typically excellent video.

Normal blogging service will resume shortly, I promise.

God knows I didn't mean to be offline for that long...

Enjoy.

Until tomorrow, I'll just keep moving on...

2009-02-17T17:32:00.005Z

Sorry for lack of updates in recent weeks, just when I was starting to get back into the swing of blogging n' all.

This month's excuse is my impending house move.

I move in two days time.

Yikes!

At present, walking from the living upstairs to the bedrooms is something of a military assault course with the ammount of... Well, stuff I have boxed, bagged or rolled waiting to be packed into the hire van on move-day.

Two years; who'd have thought I needed all this... Stuff?

Where'd all this stuff come from?

Anyway.

Appears I may be offline for [*shudder*] upwards of a week. Strangely, for a new-build only a few years old the previous tenants never connected a land line. Although I don't really use a land line per se, without one I can't get back online. Cue delicate negotiations with the agents as to who's paying what exactly.

Expect pictures and musings on the new digs & location as soon as I get re-connected.

In the meanwhile I'm setting this to autopilot; ditto Facebook, Twitter, Hotmail pages & the like.

Right then, where's I put the packing tape?

[*whistles*]

Maybe tomorrow I'll wanna' settle down.

Until tomorrow, I'll just keep moving on.

25 Random Things

2009-02-01T15:05:00.007Z

Another one of those meme things...

I'm an avid Guardian reader.
I can happily devour an entire packet of biscuits in one sitting.
Deep-down, even at my lowest ebb, I'm still an optimist.
I have a love for dance/electronic music, but my tastes are otherwise broad; rock to classical, hip-hop to indie.
I'm 6'3".
At the last count, I have visited 22 countries and rising... Travel is one of my great passions in life.
Following a friends' recommendation I am currently a massive fan of 'The Shield' and secretly wish policing was a little more like that sometime.
All the women I've had relationships with were born outside the UK.
I drive too fast.
I enter a ridiculous number of competitions. Someones got to win, surely?
I'm intrigued by religion but am still an agnostic.
Bad manners infuriate me - when you hold a door open for someone and they don't say thanks...
I'm a bit of a romantic, really.
Though I don't read as much as I used to, I've always got a book on the go.
I think I'm starting to develop insomnia.
Unusual for a bloke; but I love cats.
I'm typing this to avoid packing. I move house on the 19th of this month.
Before becoming a copper I worked as a bookseller, and prior to that for a small environmental charity in The New Forest.
I'm a terrible, but slowly improving cook.
When I get some more money through I would like to get a decent digital SLR camera and become a better photographer.
I cannot function properly without a morning coffee.
I long to be a father. Eventually.
My heroes include Moby, Neil Armstrong, David Attenborough, Captain Scott and Ellen MacArthur.
I have a strange fascination with cold places, particularly The Antarctic.
I can still speak (rustily) fluent Swedish.

Enough change already

2009-01-29T20:50:00.004Z

These last few months have seen, and continue to see, plenty of change on a personal level. And I think I've had enough for now thankyouverymuch.

Just before Christmas I got signed-off from my probationary period. I'm a proper-copper now. Therefore I'm harder to fire if things go, well, a little Pete-Tong. After some wobbles through last year on the training side (many issues not my fault either), I managed to stabilise things and set out on a consistent six-month run making a good name and reliable reputation for myself.

So much so then, that when candidates were being considered this week to move to other shifts to bolster their experience and strength, my name was considered a front-runner.

Woah there, that's got to be zero to hero in record time surely?

I was under the impression that the move was a done deal, however I was invited to plead my case to the powers-that-be.

See, I didn't want to go.

Flattering though the 'candidacy' was; I work on a great shift, with good colleagues. There's a real team atmosphere on our shift. When the shit goes down we all pull together. That's not to say that other shifts don't, but the last thing I really needed right now would have been to be up heaved elsewhere having to establish myself at work all over again.

Thankfully then, the powers-that-be reconsidered and I'm staying put.

I spilt from a two year relationship just before Christmas.

I move house in less than a month.

That's quite enough change thanks.

Words

2009-01-20T19:19:00.003Z

"We cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribes shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself..."

Spot-on, Mr President.

10 things I'll miss, when I move

2009-01-11T23:23:00.007Z

The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight regularly flying over the house
A 24-hour Tesco, a mere five minutes down the road (perfect for us shift-workers)
Items in the kitchen staying remarkably fresh beyond their sell-by date (the kitchen really is that cold, it's like a walk-in fridge)
Living at the edge of a large tract of woodland
The wildlife
Having a garden
Being a mere 90-minutes from friends & family in Yorkshire (though I recently discovered it can be done in 75...)
Genuinely friendly neighbours
The anonymity of living over 25 miles away from where I patrol
The frankly excellent local 'Chippy

Midnight Madness

2009-01-01T21:44:00.001Z

Rather apt considering last nights' partying I thought....

Happy New Year world!

Let's make it a good one.

Let's at least try, eh?

Change

2008-12-28T16:42:00.003Z

It being the end of the year it's time to do the cliched looking-back-thing, however I find myself for the most keenly looking forward.

I'm not saying 2009 is heralding the start of a personal revolution by any means, it's just that I am certain that the new year will being change on a number of levels.

Firstly, I've decided to move.

I moved to my present location primarily because it was geographically central to all the various locations my training and subsequent police station posting. Since I made the jump down here and managed to get myself successfully signed-off as a 'proper copper'- I now find myself living a little out on a limb. Though it was convenient and central for training, now that I've settled into the routine of policing a rural market town, I am tiring of the 50-mile round trip to work and back, the time wasted on a very dull- A-class road and the petrol burned.

Socially, those who live over this way all have families and don't tend to go out that much. Most of the friends and colleagues I've made down here are clustered near where I work. Therefore if my colleagues are going out for a social, it's a real pain to organise transport or places to stay, even for a simple few drinks after a shift. It gets a bit lonely at times.

So sometime soon, possibly even in the next few months, I'll swap this rural market town for another.

Change has come on a personal level too. You don't have to be Sherlock to figure out the identity of the girlfriend and probably have heard by now that we've sadly split up. It's nothing for me to discuss at length here, I have far to much respect for her to do that, however I am probably blessed with the most amicable break-up that one could wish for. I've gained a close and precious friend for the rest of my life; that much is certain.

At work I've learned that I'm getting a new line-manager / Sargent in January which has come to a bit of a shock to all of us on shift. Looking at the rest of the shifts at the station we're probably the closest-knit and I feel like I'm losing a mentor who shepherded me though some really tough times at work. It's another loss that I'm taking quite personally.

Change on a number of levels then.

Perhaps my life needs shaking up a little.

As the great prophet Sheryl Crow once wrote:

"A change, will do you good."

Give me a break

2008-12-01T17:59:00.004Z

The portfolio is handed in.

I’m mere days from being confirmed in rank.

It’s a relief on the one hand; free from the self-induced stigma of the extension, and the oh-so-welcome pay rise.

You’re the first group to gain the NVQ qualification gushed the training staff back in the mists of time when we commenced out training.

Wonderful. I’ve yet to meet any fellow candidate who was particularly thrilled at gaining the qualification, or more importantly ever wanted it in the first place.

An NVQ level four equals something like a foundation degree so I’m told. Another line on the CV should I ever change jobs. But what does an NVQ in policing qualify me for exactly?

Whatever. I don’t care anymore.

Just bring on the pay rise.

Work are cracking down more than ever on using the internet at work; outside of work any murmurings on Facebook and the like trickle back to the station at lightening speed.

The higher-ups increasingly seem to deny we have life other than what is spelt out in PACE.

Seems the public couldn’t care if we get a break either.

Recently I was in a supermarket on my patch. Granted I was on uniformed duty, but I was tired. Hungry.

I parked my patrol car outside and strode into the store to get some refreshments.

Immediately eyebrows were raised as soon as the customers got a glimpse of my uniform. I could almost hear the whispers: Ooo, where’s the shoplifter then?

None here today.

I meander around the aisles and then dutifully I queue up with my coke, sandwich and Kit-Kat. I grab a copy of The Guardian to read in the evening at home.

A couple of twenty-somethings shift impatiently behind me.

What he doing in here? Hasn’t he got time to be out on the streets? One says under their breath to the other.

I turn my head to look at them and bring myself up to my full 6’3” stature.

What I did say, casually:

Sorry, did one of you say something to me?

No, no… They fluster.

I turn back towards the checkout and hear a nervous giggle behind me.

I continue queuing and stride purposefully back out the store.

Mercilessly the radio remains quiet still.

What I should have said:

You try working eleven fucking hours without a break.

Wassup 2008

2008-11-05T23:25:00.001Z

True... True...

Close, but...

2008-10-13T19:27:00.006+01:00

Barring any major catastophies I'm now led to believe that I should be 'signed off' within the coming month.

Just a few more lines of bullshit on my learning portfolio then a whole host of signatures and that should be it over and done with.

I don't know if I'll ever get the portfolio back into my custody, but I've already realised it'd make a pretty good draft-excluder...

So by 'signed off' I mean - confirmed in rank, and job, as a constable.

Those of you who have followed my story, somewhat muted as it is these days, will note that I haven't had the easiest route to this destination.

Though faults may have been my own, and those of others, my goal is within sight.

Now the question rears its head "What next?"

Thirty-one years later

2008-10-02T17:09:00.000+01:00

So yesterday I celebrated my thirty-first birthday. Another year older, another year wiser, they say. However, I cannot say I’ve felt particularly different at all for the last five or six birthdays now. My mind is firmly entrenched in my twenties and refuses to move.

I celebrated it down in Norwich with girlfriend & her lad; a nice yummy meal out at Wagamma’s, some thoughtful and quite original presents, a few cards. All -in-all how I like to celebrate birthdays really. Though I’m happy to attend big parties I generally don’t like to be the host or subject of one.

Birthdays are always a good time to stop and take stock. So where do I find myself?

Unmarried, but in the second year of a stable relationship.

‘Plodding’ away in a good job, however one that I’m still trying to figure out.

Not owning my own home, but quite happily renting one in these turbulent economic times.
With few savings, but comparatively little debt.

In close and stable contact with most of my friends and family, yet surprisingly lonesome all-to-often.

Having travelled to 23 countries, yet wishing to travel to many more.

However much things depress me, frustrate me, annoy me and perplex me at times. I sit back and consider… Well, things, could be a lot worse…

The day I almost killed my girlfriend

2008-09-09T00:13:00.005+01:00

...If I remember correctly, was August 25th, this year.

This was several weeks ago now, whilst holidaying in The Lake District.

Having spent our first day exploring the park, and enjoying a rare break in the otherwise abysmal weather, I sat in the car in Ambleside regarding the map with a furrowed brow.

Ambleside, is the main centre of tourist activity and commerce in the 'Lakes. It was early evening, the sun was beginning to dip behind the peaks, and we were some thirty miles away from our hostel where we would be spending the next few nights.

“There are two routes” I mused aloud, studying the road atlas “We can go the long way round, via the A593 and A595. Or...”

Then I paused momentarily as I traced a small unclassified road that took a more direct route, snaking through the centre of the park.

“...There’s this road here, there’s only one gradient chevron indicated in the atlas, and what’s more with the clear weather it should be pretty stunning scenery.”

“Ok, if you’re sure.” said girlfriend, perhaps more out of tiredness from a long day then perhaps genuine confidence in route planning skills “But it’ll be getting dark soon.”

“Oh we’ll be alright,” I reassured her, and her lad sat in the back of my car, “Trust me.”

“Riiiiight.” Said Girlfriend – her alarm bells already beginning to ring. She stifled a yawn, nervously.

I put the vehicle in gear and turned the car towards Langdale, blissfully unaware.

The first twenty minutes or so proved to be a tranquil drive along narrow country roads, hemmed in either side by dry stone walls. The road hugged the valley floor and for all intents and purposes we could have been driving one of Postman Pat’s gently meandering rounds if only we’d hummed along with the tune.

Then the road began to climb, gently at first, but then gathering altitude in earnest. The valley floor was suddenly hundreds of feet below us. Girlfriend shifted uncomfortably in her seat….

Then she froze as we passed this sign.

“It’s too late to turn back now, we’re losing the light.” I decided, besides I didn't get a chance to properly read the sign.

I was more worried about the fact that twilight had come all too quickly.

Girlfriend meanwhile, reminded me calmly and firmly how much she really did not like heights in the slightest. Not one bit.

See, maths has never been my strongpoint, at least not when I’m focusing on driving anyway.

That’s why I was never any good at calculating stopping distances. Another thing not to tell the Girlfriend I thought. So perhaps that’s why the full impact of 1:3 only really hit me when the valley floor really was hundreds and hundreds of feet bellow now, as we negotiated switchback after switchback.

The car slowed more and more as we climbed. This was going to take a while.

I’d met a few vehicles oncoming, lower down the valley, and they were tricky enough to negotiate a passing point. Stopping on this gradient would be the hill start from hell. In fact there wasn’t a chance to stop; there was nowhere to pull in. It was a case of attacking one bend after the other.

10mph, when you’re halfway up a mountainside, feels like 50.

I’d dropped down even into first gear at this point, and the engine was starting to sound like a norse god of thunder with severe Asthma.

I tried to put it into second gear.

The 1.6l engine gave an almighty sigh and began to shudder like it was choking.

Nope, that wasn’t going to work. First gear it would have to be then. For minutes on end.

This was not quite how it appeared on the map.

When we reached the head of the pass, before it dropped down into the next valley – I ventured to ask Girlfriend how she was feeling.

She didn’t reply.

I rebounded the question towards Boyo in the back.

“Yeah, cool!” he replied cheerfully, an answer which buoyed my confidence somewhat. He was clearly enjoying the views, whilst I couldn't afford to take my eyes of the slender ribbon of tamac ahead of me.

At least someone’s got faith in my driving skills I thought because I’m not so sure I can do this...

“Are you okay?” I tried to asked Girlfriend again.

“Mmmm.” Came a muffled reply from the passenger seat.

“What, sorry?”

“Just concentrate ok?!” Girlfriend shot back. I glanced at her – gripping the upholstery like she was sliding out of it towards certain doom - and then back at the road again. Ahead, I could see that we were gathering speed into another set of devilish switchbacks, this time to be tackled going downhill.

Girlfriend seemed to be listening to every whine and hum of the engine.

“I think your gearbox has gone.” She offered.

“Oh, thanks hon.”

Thankfully it hadn’t, but the strain was obvious on the car.

As we descended into the next valley I prised my nails out of the sterring wheel and began to relax a little.

“I think we’re past the worst of it, y’know.”

A mile or two later, the road began to climb once more.

Oh the penny dropped I forgot about the other pass.

And that, dear reader, is where I think in her mind at least, Girlfriend almost killed me.

Her first words upon descending into the relative of Eskdale?

“You owe me a double, of whatever alcoholic drink I choose.”

Adele - Hometown Glory

2008-08-16T04:32:00.003+01:00

Thing is, I hated her debut track - Chasing Pavements' - a track which suffered greatly from the radio overplaying it. This, however, stops me dead every time I hear it. A gorgeous, if melancholy track.

Samim - Heater

2008-08-16T03:55:00.001+01:00

This has been out for ages now on the dancefloors, but it still captures the vibe of summer if you ask me.

It also reminds me of two things I seem to be missing of late:

1. a flight to somewhere exotic

2. a damn good ass-shaking bit of dancing

Magnetic North

2008-08-13T15:53:00.002+01:00

I’m a traveller at heart.

I love nothing more than journeying somewhere new, with all the sights, sounds and experiences that come hand-in-hand.

I’m at my most excited when about to leave these shores, and I’m often at my most depressed just after I’ve returned.

With all that said though, due to rising prices, recent expenditure and this whole ‘crunch’ business, the next two weeks will be spent strictly within these borders.

Usually that thought would depress me in itself, but because recent trips to see friends and family up north have often been so hurried, I’m looking forward to spending some quality time in and around the hills where I was born.

So the next few weeks are to be filled with walks, moors, ales, puddings, flattened vowels and significantly lower costs than anywhere south of the Watford Gap.

Also, I’m going to have the pleasure of Northernising two thoroughly East Anglian types, girlfriend and her lad, it’s an opportunity to look again at familiar places with new eyes.

Travel as much as you want; returning home, to where your heart really is, is always something special.

Live to work, or work to live?

2008-07-26T21:44:00.005+01:00

Much as I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with my job, I think I certainly fall into the latter category.

One of the nice things about my shift pattern is that I work six days on, four days off. That may sound like a lot, but consider that the first day begins as soon as I knock-off at 07:00hrs and is mostly slept away in bed.

Four days off however does afford plenty of time to spend with the girlfriend. Although she’s happy to see me, the first day doesn’t exactly have much in-depth conversation short of me mumbling and complaining about sleep, or lack thereof.

Four days also affords plenty of time to plan stuff.

On this set of rest days we’ve managed to fit in a fair few things, despite her having to work 3 out of the 4 days.

Thursday in particular was excellent. Girlfriend maintains good communication and friendship with her ex-husband, who having met him a few times, I must concede is a very sound bloke. Indeed, one part of my brain is always thinking “Y’know, this is awkward;” every time we meet “He used to be married to my girlfriend.” But all the same I can’t fault him. I especially can’t fault a bloke who maintains good steady contact with girlfriend’s, his, son either.

So girlfriend’s ex-husband, who works as an engineer at a local RAF base, kindly extended the invitation to me to accompany them when the base’s annual friends & family day came around this year.

An excellent day was had by girlfriend, her lad, ex and I – perusing the stalls and watching an excellent flying display. Me being the quite the aircraft enthusiast reverted to a mental age younger than her son’s when the Typhoon slammed on its afterburners and the Vulcan cruised gracefully overhead. And as for The Red Arrows, they never fail to disappoint.

We managed to do some catching up at the cinema also and saw ‘The Dark Night’ and ‘WALL-E’. Two excellent films that show filmmakers at the top of their game in two very different ways. I could hark on about how truly brilliant both flicks are, but you should simply abandon any preconceptions you may have about either and go see. You won’t regret it.

An ice-cream here, a coffee there, but we did also go out for dinner here. Yum.

For the first time in a while I actually feel refreshed, mentally and physically, and ready to go back to work.

Let’s see how long that lasts.

"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs..."

2008-07-09T23:35:00.002+01:00

ITV News in their typically scaremongering Daily Mail type-fashion declared this evening that before this recession is out "up to a million people are predicted to loose their jobs".

Two thoughts popped into my head:

Where the hell did they pluck that figure from?
As a colleague of mine mentioned earlier today “It’s quite a good time to be working for the government when you think about it.”

It’s a good time to be working in a politically sensitive job where, although there’s always someone who’s going to disagree with what you do, suggest that that they get rid of you altogether, or slim down your numbers, and they recoil in horror at the thought.

See I hate to gloat here, but as long as I get signed-off okay (still some 3-5 months away, paperwork permitting); my job security will be second-to-none. Once I get signed-off then I become harder to fire, which is useful also in a job where every second choice can result in criticism or disciplining if it all goes south. Once I get signed off, I shed my ‘probationer’ status and get an annual pay-rise of some £2500. Bloody useful indeed in this climate.

I think I must be one of a select band of ‘professionals’ living alone in rented accommodation – for which the housing market went way out of his reach several years ago. Sure I could have saddled myself with stratospheric mortgage a few years back, but without the financial security of a live-in partner, I would have been terribly vulnerable to interest rates and the like right about now.

“HOUSE PRICE SHOCK! - Rates plummeting at their fastest rates since... Last Tuesday!” scream the headlines...

That’s brilliant news if you ask me!

Houses should be about living in, not making profit on.

So with some fiscal prudence then, I’m actually poised to ride out any recession in a pretty damn good position.

It’s nice when things go your way for a change.

Apparently thousands of market traders are set to lose their jobs as the recession hits. My sympathy there is minimal; after all they helped get us into this mess in the first place.

Blue lines

2008-07-01T15:35:00.001+01:00

Work remains the reason why I seem to blog a lot less these days, and why I have significantly less material to work with.

Damn, I wish I could spill what it’s really like for a modern police officer these days – how the praise from anything you do immediately gravitates upwards, and how if there’s any shit to be flung, you can generally tell it’s going to fall squarely on yourself.

How the thin blue line is worrying thin indeed at times.

How you’re often one decision from losing your job, but how much pressure you’re under to make that decision. And fast.

I’m approaching the end of my training, and as it tuned out I should have been looking to be signed off in August as a fully-fledged-and-significantly-harder-to-fire officer. As it turns out I’ve been extended for a few months into the autumn to give me a little longer to get my learning portfolio and get some operational issues in order.

Consider it like doing a university assignment and asking your tutor to give you an extension because of extraneous circumstances.

Some of these issues were under my control, or perhaps I could have changed if I really tried, others have been way out of my control.

Still, I do enjoy what I do and strive to be the best I can, however lady luck appears to have been significantly absent for me during the first part of the year. At least at work anyway.

I’m a few keystrokes away from telling you what it’s really like behind the uniform, but I’ve had my fingers burnt once before.

If you’re ever in my part of the world – come have a drink with me.

I’ll tell you what it’s really like.

Experiment #2

2008-06-19T00:54:00.001+01:00

Further adventures in travel, photography and Windows Movie Maker.

Wall-E

2008-06-04T22:13:00.001+01:00

Film of the summer? Looks like Pixar have done it again...

Best Man's Speech

2008-05-27T13:02:00.004+01:00

Distinguished guests, ladies, gentleman, boys, girls and even monkeys (wherever they may be - in-joke... long story...). I’ve been dreading introducing the final speaker today; for that speaker is me.

When I began to write this speech, all of a couple of hours ago during the service, I imagined that the Best Man’s role to be somewhat comparable to that of being a Prime Minister. It’s one of those jobs that everyone would like to have a crack at, but when they realise the responsibility involved, and how closely your speeches get scrutinised, you’d think twice about taking it on.

As a Best Man then I am duty-bound then to sprinkle-in some mildly humiliating stories from the happy couple’s respective childhoods. Well, mainly Chris’ at least…. So when my brother here asked me to take on this job, the sense of honour I felt was mixed with a fait foreboding. How would he take it if I spilled the beans and the told the whole truth? How he was imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit, how he escaped from a maximum security prison and survives today as a soldier of fortune and part-time member of Her Majesty’s Royal Air Force?

You’ll be glad to know, only half of that last bit is true….

Christopher * * * * was born to us in the year of our lord nineteen-hundred-and-seventy. The year when the Beatles Split, Monty Python exploded onto our screens and Apollo 13 came back alive.

The first of two brothers to be born to our eccentric little family, our English/Swedish parents decided to give him the straightforward rather traditional English name of Christopher – the complete syllables of which were only uttered in future when he was generally getting up to mischief. Whilst seven years later I was given the Swedish name of Ingmar, Chris was no doubt eternally grateful to have got the less-exotic name of the two – apparently the name ‘Jan’ was considered for him at one point, but knowing the Armed Forces’ tradition for ridicule he feared this would have translated into ‘Yawn’ by his colleagues. Chris rarely reveals his middle name – ‘Leif’ taken from our Swedish grandfather, fearing again that this might get lost in translation and that he may be dubbed ‘leaf’ by his colleagues.

According to the gospel of Wikkipedia – Christopher is the English version of a Europe-wide name derived from the Ancient Greek ‘Khristóphoros’ and the Christian legend of St Christopher. The name means “Christ-bearer”, or more literally “Bearer of the anointed one”. In modern RAF slang this apparently translates as ‘I hope to Christ he gets this thing fixed.’

Be it the occasional vaccum between his ears or his inexplicable childhood fascination with cranes, Chris’ desitiny you could say was always linked to the air from a very young age.

As a schoolchild, Chris would occasionally be so determined to avoid revision that he took to the air quite literally himself - by jumping out of our first floor window onto the back lawn in order to sneak past the parents and hang out with friends. Avoiding revision, I can attest, is certainly a family trait I share; I just never took it to quite such a spectacular level.

The aeronautical engineer in him began to assert itself during his teenage years when on Bonfire Night not satisfied with the “Oohs” and “Ahhs” of traditional firework displays. Chris and some of his friends would head down to nearby woodland and aim fireworks at each other purely for fun. He soon began to find a knack for jerry-rigging rockets and bangers to create his own ordnance to scare his friends and the local wildlife.

Chris eventually found safer ways to study aerospace engineering and take to the skies by joining the Air Cadets. He soon excelled as a junior officer and budding glider pilot and I am reliably informed that during these years he had many young female cadets’ hearts a-flutter. Suffice as to say that his favourite movie around this time was Top Gun, and I believe that in Nicky he’s finally found his Kelly McGillis.

Speaking of co-starring blondes, what can I say of Nicky, my new sister in law? I can start with how glad I am to welcome her into this crazy family of ours, how beautiful she looks on this truly special day…. And how sorry I am for Farnham Newsagents who have now lost all her umpteen wedding magazine subscriptions and find themselves struggling to balance their orders.

Looking at the happy couple, I wonder if love hath seen no greater sacrifice... For what greater token of love could there be than for Christopher to be here with his bride on this special day, and not cheering on his beloved Hull City in the Championship play-off finals with tens of thousands of other fans at Wembley Stadium.

*drape Hull City scarf around groom's neck*

It’s a funny thing for a younger brother to be proud of his older brother; it’s usually the other way around isn’t it? But I am immensely proud and honoured to have been asked to be my brother’s Best Man and to share this day with you all. For this day is the first day of the rest of Chris and Nicky’s life together.

All that remains is for me for me to ask you all to charge your glasses once more and rise to your feet as, Ladies and Gentleman, I give you the bride and groom.

The secret history of my place

2008-05-22T22:41:00.001+01:00

With house prices being as utterly insane as they are, a single-earner like me finds himself renting a small house on the edge of a bustling little market town in the Midlands. I’m lucky that the monthly rate is relatively cheap for what it is and I’m surrounded by some quite pleasant neighbours at the end of a quiet little cul-de-sac.

One of the couples living next door I chat to quite often and we stood having a natter this afternoon in the sun, clutching gardening tools.

They’ve seen many tenants come and go over the years and they began to relate to me some of the stories of those who lived there.

Bearing in mind that it’s a house built in the last few decades and it’s in a quite respectable part of town…

I could have never have guess that the place had once been raided for drugs by the very force that I work for…

And that a baby had once been born in the front room!

They’re a very respectable couple, and I have no reason to disbelieve them.

I now look at the place a little differently.

Speech!

2008-05-17T11:43:00.000+01:00

One week then, until I stand up in front of a room full of relatives, friends and relative unknowns to deliver a speech as my brother’s best man.

Dry throat, expectant faces, being the final speaker of the day… Let’s just say I’m not exactly looking forward to the prospect.

Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking I’m going to read straight from A4 double-lined sheets, as opposed to prompt-cards or straight from memory. Try as I might I’ll strive to maintain a bit of eye contact with the audience here and there.

I’ve been working on it for the best part of a month now but it’s a tricky beast to get just right.

Do I stray too far into humour and end up with tumbleweeds rolling past?

Or do I keep it serious and watch the heads drop into the leftovers of the wedding breakfast.

The temptation is to steal the best one-liners from the book I bought on this very subject; however the long-suppressed writer in me thinks I should be shot for even considering such a thought.

I think I’m going to tread down the familiar route of recounting a few amusing stories from my brother’s youth – steering clear of any taboo subjects such as ex-girlfriends and-the-like.

I’ve got at least several minutes to fill and I’m too much of a coward to take any more of a risk than that.

However, any clever ideas / tips you may have – feel free to stick them on a comment or email. Should the speech be satisfactorily received then I may even publish it on here in the long run.

Out of breath

2008-05-09T22:44:00.001+01:00

Every single time I come home from work, I do so with the best intention to be productive in the evening, following morning or whatever constitutes the gap between my next shifts.

My well-intentioned plans keep falling by the wayside on a daily basis.

Today I worked from 07:00 through 18:00. I set off for home thinking

“Yeah, I’ll do some learning portfolio work tonight.”

Returning home with 40-min each way commute added onto the already 11hr shift, and not discounting the 30-or-so mins that I voluntarily stayed behind in order to get some of my workload all-square…

Arrive home, cook a meal and then next thing I know it’s slipping past 21:00 and I find myself flopping down in front of a monitor over here, or a television over there with a drink.

And then I really should get some sleep.

Few hours of rapid-eye-movement later and then I simply turn around and head in the other direction.

Or so it feels.

One of the reasons I chose policing, and one of the reasons I do adore this more crazy of jobs, is the fact that no two days are the same. There’s always somewhere, someone, or something new to tackle. If it wasn’t for that fact that I really would be going mad of late.

I mean, how do office workers cope?

I have a spectacular lack of drive out of work; I’m just simply exhausted.

Apologies readers, bear with me...

Taking a breather

2008-04-28T22:00:00.004+01:00

Thanks for the well-wishes over text, email and blog.

Dad was discharged yesterday evening after convincing his doctors that basically that he'd be a lot more comfortable up north, in familiar surroundings.

Thankfully this meant I was able to drive him to my house (roughly halfway) where he was able to get a proper night's sleep before continuing north this morning.

He assures me he's now back to rude health again.

I did have great plans this evening of catching up on study, reading and the like now I'm back to being on my lonesome.

However I find myself doing little of note this evening.

I'm just tired...

It never just rains...

2008-04-27T13:12:00.001+01:00

Well April jut gets better.

No sooner do I get my car back…

Return from my uncle’s funeral…

Than my father falls ill with an irregular heartbeat and gets rushed into A&E.

Problem is that we were visiting girlfriend at the time down in Norfolk.

He’s been admitted to hospital here…

But I’m due on shift at 07:00 tomorrow, some 50+ miles away.

Girlfriend has to head down to London for a work course.

Essentially, Dad potentially may be kept for another night in an unfamiliar county.

Picking him up and visiting him may be over a 100-mile trip.

And rumours are that visiting hours are heavily restricted at this place due to a MRSA-type-outbreak.

Wonderful.

Further journal entries

2008-04-08T20:34:00.003+01:00

More random journal scribbles from my recent trip to Munich and Liechtenstein...

"The hum of tens of different languages drifts by on the re-circulated air, broken occasionally by hearty laughter from a seemingly disproportionate number of stag party hoards marching past."

"A phalanx of fire emergency vehicles just whizzed past the end of this set of gates with blue lights and sirens wailing. Yikes, I’m about to board a flight in the next few minutes… Where the hell were they going?"

"The Olympic Park was packed full of people on a bright spring day; strolling, eating hot dogs and walking actual dogs too."

"A supposedly Greek temple in supposedly English gardens then, but beautiful and serene it is. Or at least it was until some little devil spawn decided to shatter the peace."

"And on to one of Munich’s numerous beer-halls for the Starkbierfest – literally ‘Strong Beer Festival’ – for a couple of tankards of bloody strong ale, all to the tune of a Bavarian band playing traditional drinking songs and random covers of American oldies."

"Seems like I’ve caught a travel bug. Quite literally. The last 36 hours I’ve been running a temperature, getting aches in all sorts of funny places and generally sniffling like Niagra. I blame the Aussie couple coughing behind me on the flight like they had a case of SARS, or the fantastically obese German guy to the front who also coughed, spluttered and generally occupied my airspace. This means that my usual ambles around the city have been reduced to a zombie-like shuffle."

"Two observations about Germans and Munich:
1. Germans don’t really observe queues as religiously as your average Brit
2. You’re never more than a few blocks from a bakery in this town"

"Packed and caught the train in plenty of time. So, all to plan so far. Worryingly so."

"Packs-on-backs we walked over the bridge into Liechtenstein from Switzerland crossing quite probably one of the most low-key borders you’re likely to find. Country number 23 it is then. And a very small one at that."

"Realising quite quickly that not very much was going to be open, we made priority #1 getting a ‘souvenir passport stamp’ – interestingly from the Art Museum in town as the Tourist Office was shut. How does that work?"

"Not being a keen skier or having ever skied before full-stop I was unfamiliar with the chair lift operations generally. When the safety bar swung back up instead of clicking into place I was left grasping at thin air, tens of meters off the ground, halfway up the peak. I quickly figured out the mechanism whilst gulping down alungful of air and vowing that I should really figure this Ski-lark out some day soon."

"Pizza is on the menu in this town, and the owner of the place has a quite brilliant mullet..."

"Having practically ‘done’ the country in one fell swoop, we shrugged and popped over to Austria for a quick coffee."

"This being Liechtenstein you could bank on the national art gallery being open, but little else at that."

"The trolley guy on the train entered our carriage singing. Nobody really batted an eyelid. That is until the guy, who was clearly an African immigrant, started joking to passengers in a mix of German and English with some spectacularly borderline comments about slavery and-the-like. Being British I treated this with a raised eyebrow or two, and said nothing, but my liberal American friend across the table could not stop her jaw from quite literally hitting the floor."

"Compared to many cities, Munich doesn’t exactly make it straight-forward to get from the city to the airport. On a wing and a fare-dodge I got here having realised halfway into the journey that I’d bought the wrong ticket at the station. No wonder they want to build a highly expensive and controversial Maglev train line to the airport then. Amen to that. The confusion that began in the city continued at the airport where rather than going for gates 1-99 say, Munich goes for alphabet soup, with various stages before your flight liberally sprinkled around all four corners of the airport."

New Car Review - Peugeot 207

2008-04-07T01:22:00.003+01:00

Peugeot’s update of the enormously popular 206 translates into an even sleeker and sportier supermini than its predecessor.

Trademark oval headlights frame a much wider grill, and gone are the bonnet vents that defined its predecessor. Strangely the Peugeot badge itself feels the need to dominate the front end (in case you ever forget what you’re driving). But ignoring the boisterous front-end, other stylistic refinements such as bug-eye light-clusters to the rear continue to improve on the successful 206-template.

This driver prefers usually prefers to fit his 6’3” ft frame into a slightly larger vehicle, but found the 207 surprisingly roomy inside with a good driving position. Tall persons would certainly feel cramped in the back; thankfully this one has been doing most of the driving. The cockpit is stylish, however in places not particularly practical. Peugeot have dressed much of the interior with non-slip mats to place items upon, leaving a miniscule glovebox to hide any valuables from immediate sight. I haven’t yet found out if items stay put when talking a particularly sharp corner at speed, and I’m not really looking forward to finding out either. The dials are all present and correct, finished in a black and silver colour-scheme that illuminates in street-lamp amber come nightfall. The trip-computer/audio system mounted on the centre of the console is forever chipping in with useful information whether you like it or not, and has options a-plenty to keep the average gadget-junkie occupied.

The 1.4l provides ample ‘nippyness’ and cruises surprisingly well on longer journeys. Acceleration is a little anaemic, and the ride is mostly quiet, but hit 4,000rpm and the engine growls like you’ve just stepped on its tail. Just don’t expect to win a drag-race off the lights in this model. Perhaps I’m not used to it, but the power-steering at lower speeds is worryingly light – I’m worried that I might sneeze it into next door’s garden when setting-off at times, but thankfully it weights down as speeds increase.

Going back to the interior though – the piece de resistance is the panoramic sunroof. Neatly hidden by tinted glass and a long telescopic panel at first, opening it fully transforms your driving view, whilst bathing the interior in natural light and managing not to make you feel quite as ‘naked’ as you might in a convertible.

All-in-all; a fresh and funky courtesy car, but hand-on-heart, I do miss my Ford Focus.

Picking up the pieces

2008-04-02T16:33:00.002+01:00

So much for easing into the month of April with a few practical jokes.

After years of driving safely I had my first road accident yesterday.

Driving on an A-Class road in one of England’s less populous counties, even at a safe following distance, you don’t expect the articulated lorry in front of you to suddenly slow from approximately 40mph to a very sudden halt in order to let vehicles out from a side road.

I’m fine, although a little sore in places, but I’m no ambulance chaser and won’t be perusing anything beyond an insurance claim for the damage. My car however is rather poorly and is currently at accident repair centre awaiting some TLC.

I arrive into work late with the accompanying piss-taking, shrug, laugh and carry on. Spectacularly annoying it may have been, that’s quite literally one of life’s little knocks. It had to happen on April 1st didn't it?

I get home from work sometime just gone one o’clock this morning.

There are two texts on my mobile.

One was from the girlfriend checking up on me, following the shunt.

The second was from my mother and quite simply said:

CALL ME WHEN YOU CAN

I stared at the message for as the quiet realisation of the past few weeks sunk in. I glanced again at my watch and realised that the inevitable conversation could wait until the morning.

Ten hours later, with a clearer mind I called my mother and she confirmed that my uncle Kenneth passed away last night, following a frighteningly swift decline at the mercy of an aggressive tumour.

I have not the words for fitting tribute at this moment; but I loved him, and he deserved to know earlier than he did.

The 300th

2008-03-26T21:29:00.002Z

(Post, that is...)

*muffled cheers*

The main reason I probably don’t blog with the same frequency that I used to is that the main subject I wish to share with you, and how ever careful I was trying to do so before, is not something I can continue doing. Specifically since some Judas I work with somewhere keeps trying to get me stitched up for it, by reading these pages and going straight to a supervisor instead of coming to me first. Whoever you are, you’re a bastard.

I can speak of recent travel adventures however, and in a future post I’ll share some random scribbles from my journal (something I diligently do when travelling) regarding recent trip to Germany and Liechtenstein, with brief trips to Switzerland and Austria thrown in for good measure.

I’ve had some grim news in recent weeks though. One of my uncles is gravely ill with stomach cancer. He’s over in Sweden at the moment, and here in the UK I feel somewhat powerless to do much apart from keep in close contact over the phone and internet. I do hope to see him again soon, and god forbid should the worst happen sooner than expected I’ve negotiated through work to be able to take short-term emergency leave. I think my Dad said it best though in recent days when he stated “I think we’re a bit past the get-well card stage now.”

Lufthansa Airbus trying to land at Hamburg Airport

2008-03-03T20:30:00.001Z

This has been all over the news over here. Oh my god. Buy that pilot a beer!

Three weeks off

2008-02-28T20:04:00.003Z

The plan is to...

Catch up on most of my lost sleep from the past six months

Decide if the new goldfrapp album is 'great', or 'meh'

Walk more

Do coffee more

Read plenty of books that I’ve had on my lengthy to-read list

Help girlfriend with all those little jobs around her place

Visit my brother

Help my brother with all those little jobs around his new place

Make my flight in time

Visit friends in southern Germany

Successfully plan and execute an assault on Lichtenstein

Try not to decimate last months’ surprisingly healthy pay-packet entirely

Once more, with feeling

2008-02-19T21:00:00.001Z

Why that when something happens to someone these days, be it a tragedy or a victory, be it to a CEO or a housewife, do they stand before the massed media reading a carefully worded statement?

I understand that in these days of lawsuits gone mad, one has to chose one's words carefully, but doesn't anyone just react anymore? Say what's on their mind? What they really think? Not what's scripted best?

Call me cynical, but it's a shame when even a head teacher of a primary school has to lower his eyes to a written statement every second line whilst reciting in complete monotone regarding a tragedy.

Someone break the mould.

Next time something of note happens to you, and you're asked for an opinion, say what you really think.

Bringing the noise

2008-02-11T20:03:00.000Z

You're in a car travelling at the national speed limit on an single carriage way main arterial road that bisects a county somewhere in the northern midlands.

It's mid-afternoon.

Conditions are good; bright sunshine, good visibility, dry, only a slight breeze.

Traffic is fairly light; however you share your 1/2 mile section of the road with an articulated lorry and a few other cars in front of you, all neatly spaced using the two-second rule.

Your car is placed in the centre of your side of the carriageway. The road is straight for the most, although there are frequent hidden dips and blind hill-crests on this section of the road

Suddenly your happy drive is disturbed by the unmistakable two-tone siren, blue flashing lights, strobes and alternate headlight flashes of a police vehicle on an emergency call approaching at a high rate of knots behind you.

In front of you, it appears that other vehicles have taken notice of the emergency vehicle and are responding accordingly.

Do you:

Maintain your current speed and position
Maintain your current speed and move your position to the nearside slightly
Maintain your current speed and move your position to the offside slightly
Come to a halt, regardless of your location on your side of the carriageway
Come to a halt on the nearside, in a dip in the road
Come to a halt on the nearside, on the crest of a hill
Slow down slightly and indicate in to the nearside, however not stopping
Consider this a perfect opportunity to overtake the vehicles in front

The 'correct' answer I will reveal in due course. Suffice as to say I saw examples of ALL on the road today, during week three of my police driver training.

*sigh*

The Wombats - Moving to New York

2008-01-30T23:52:00.001Z

Currently #1 on my mind's daily playlist during otherwise quiet moments of thought...

A nicer kind of ticky-box

2008-01-24T16:12:00.000Z

Idle day-off.

Feel free to cut & paste to yours.

I stole this from Rose.

Here goes.

* * * *

Level 1
() Smoked a cigarette
() Smoked a cigar
() Kissed a member of the same sex
(x) Drank alcohol.

Level 2
(x) Are/been in love
(x) Been dumped
(x) Shoplifted
() Been fired
(x) Been in a fist fight

Level 3
(x) Had a crush on an older person
(x) Skipped school
() Slept with a classmate
() Seen someone/something die

Level 4
(x) Had/have a crush on one of your friends who is now on Facebook
(x) Been to Paris
(x) Been to Spain
(x) Been on a plane
(x) Thrown up from drinking

Level 5
(x) Eaten sushi
() Been snowboarding
() Met someone BECAUSE of Facebook
(x) Been in a mosh pit

Level 6
() Been in an abusive relationship
(x) Taken pain killers
(x) Love/loved someone who you can't have
(x) Laid on your back and watched cloud shapes go by
() Made a snow angel

Level 7
(x) Had a tea party
(x) Flown a kite
(x) Built a sand castle
(x) Gone mudding (offroading)
() Played dress up

Level 8
(x) Jumped into a pile of leaves
(x) Gone sledging
(x) Cheated while playing a game
(x) Been lonely
() Fallen asleep at work/school

Level 9
(x) Watched the sun set
() Felt an earthquake
() Killed a snake

Level 10
(x) Been tickled
(x) Been robbed/vandalized
() Been cheated on
(x) Been misunderstood

Level 11
(x) Won a contest
() Been suspended from school
(x)Had detention
() Been in a car/motorcycle accident

Level 12
() Had/have braces
(x) Eaten a whole pint of ice cream in one night
() Danced in the moonlight

Level 13
(x) Hated the way you look
(x) Witnessed a crime
() Pole danced
(x) Questioned your heart
(x) Been obsessed with post-it-notes

Level 14
(x) Squished barefoot through the mud
(x) Been lost
(x) Been to the opposite side of the world
(x) Swam in the ocean
(x) Felt like you were dying

Level 15
(x) Cried yourself to sleep
(x) Played cops and robbers
() Recently colored with crayons/colored pencils/markers
() Sang karaoke
() Paid for a meal with only coins

Level 16
(x) Done something you told yourself you wouldn't
() Made prank phone calls
(x) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose
() Kissed in the rain

Level 17
(x) Written a letter to Santa Claus
() Watched the sun set/sun rise with someone you care/cared about
(x) Blown bubbles
(x) Made a bonfire on the beach or anywhere

Level 18
() Crashed a Party
() Have travelled more than 5 days with a car full of people
(x) Gone rollerskating/blading
(x) Had a wish come true
() Slept with a member of the same sex

Level 19
() Worn pearls
(x) Jumped off a bridge
(x) Screamed "penis" or "vagina"
() Swam with dolphins

Level 20
(x) Got your tongue stuck to a pole/freezer/ice cube
() Kissed a fish
() Worn the opposite sex's clothes
(x) Sat on a roof top

Level 21
(x) Screamed at the top of your lungs
() Done/attempted a one-handed cartwheel
() Talked on the phone for more than six hours (in one day)
(x) Recently stayed up for a while talking to someone you care about

Level 22
() Picked and ate an apple right off the tree
(x) Climbed a tree
(x) Had/been in a tree house
(x) Been scared to watch scary movies alone

Level 23
(x) Believed in ghosts
() Have had more than thirty pairs of shoes (not necessarily all at once)
() Gone streaking
() Visited jail

Level 24
(x) Played chicken
() Been pushed into a pool with all your clothes on
(x) Been told you're hot by a complete stranger
() Broken a bone
(x) Been easily amused

Level 25
() Caught a fish then ate it later
() Made a porn video
() Caught a Butterfly
(x) Laughed so hard you cried
(x) Cried so hard you laughed

Level 26
() Mooned/flashed someone
(x) Had someone moon/flash you
(x) Cheated on a test
(x) Forgotten someone's name
() French braided someone’s hair
(x) Gone skinny dipping
() Been kicked out of your house
(x) Tried to hurt yourself

Level 27
(x) Rode a roller coaster
(x) Went scuba-diving/snorkelling
(x) Had a cavity
() Black-mailed someone
() Been black mailed

Level 28
(x) Been used
(x) Fell going up the stairs
() Licked a cat
(x) Bitten someone
(x) Licked someone - not in private places

Level 29
() Been shot at/or at gunpoint
() Had sex in the rain
() Flattened someone’s tires
(x) Rode your car/truck until the gas light came on
() Got five dollars or less worth of gas.

Highly commendable?

2008-01-23T23:23:00.000Z

I couldn't make it to London today for the protest march and join some 22,000 colleagues marching on Westminster. However I support my colleagues 100% in getting the government to honour the independent pay award we are due. That's the 2.5% award we should have had in October, when it was due, 12 months after the previous pay award. Not the resulting 1.9% after three months drawn-out negotiation by the government.

I couldn't make it because I wouldn't have been able to get back for an award ceremony this evening which I had been invited to attend by the divisional command team. Unfortunately this had been planned months back, before the pay dispute flared up, but hey-ho.

Tonight I received a Divisional Commander's Commendation Certificate in relation to a serious assault last year, that I responded to with a team of officers. Suffice as to say enquiries resulted in arrests and justice was served.

A comment from a colleague stuck in my head from tonight

"The amount of times the job screws you over y'know, it's nice to get something back."

True.

I've had Newsnight on the TV in the background and they just did the paper-review of the first editions.

"20,000 police officers protesting on the streets" screamed the headline of the Daily Express "where are they when you need them?"

Everywhere.

Two-thousand-zero-eight

2008-01-03T16:50:00.000Z

Party over?

Oops!

Out of time.

[The other night I partied] like it was two-thousand-and-eight.

(With thanks to Prince)

Christmas was...

Different.

It comes with the territory that as an emergency service worker, chances are you're going to be working whist others are out having fun, sleeping, eating etc...

I worked Christmas Eve and Christmas Day nights for my sins, coming off-shift into Boxing Day morning.

Christmas Eve was ridiculously busy. Very little goodwill on the streets to men or women really. Fights going off all over the place and a colleague accidentally gave me a facefull of CS-spray during a scuffle.

Lovely stuff.

Christmas Day night was thankfully very quiet indeed and most of us disregarded the mounds of paperwork, patrolling and chilled out for a change. We all brought in food to nibble and had a bit of an impromptu buffet in the station. I'd slept most of the day before that, I was home alone and to be honest if I hadn't have watched the Doctor Who christmas special I wouldn't have noticed it was Christmas at all! So to have some sort of festivity later on was nice and heart-warming.

Boxing day, early hours, I drove up to the parents in East Yorkshire. Presented myself about 09:00hrs, chatted over a cup of tea for about a half-hour before collapsing into bed. Woke up around 16:00 and helped the family get snacks & drinks together for the 'clan' get-together at our place a few hours later. After much chat, food, drinks, Jenga and board games I once again collapsed into bed.

27th - Relaxed. Did very little. Perfect.

28th - Mother & I hit the sales. Bought very little really apart from a new colour printer, and even that was from a Tesco Extra!

29th - I hung out with friends back Yorkshire-way who I hadn't seen for ages. All good fun, good company.

30th - Unfortunately it was back to work. Drat.

New Year's Eve, as luck would have it, I was on earlies. This meant that even with extended workign hours this allowed me to finish at 18:00 and still have time to drive down to see girlfriend and celebrate with her. Along with her lad we went round to some friends of hers for chat, drinks and board games for the evening. A good night was had by all. I was awoken at around 01:30 by the girlfriend as I'd fallen asleep on the hosts' sofa. They did however cut me some slack when it was pointed out that I'd been up since 05:00 the previous morning.

New Year's Day - Back to work at 15:00, however still plenty of time to sleep off the hangover and drive up back to work.

How did you celebrate yours?

Women!

2007-12-30T22:18:00.000Z

A plea...

Not content with the fact that ¾ of high-street fashion retailers cater to your tastes, why do you ladies insist on clogging up the aisles in every single men’s department?

I know plenty of lads are useless shoppers but not all of us are.

Some of us guys wish to peruse the men’s departments in shops without having to continually squeeze past ladies discussing if said garment would be just right for the man in their life.

I mean we leave you alone in women’s shops don’t we?

Granted, I must admit that whenever girlfriend saunters into a ladies fashion shop I usually declare it a perfect opportunity for me to go down the road to HMV…

The other thing that’s annoying me at the moment?

People who don’t turn their Satnav’s on to ‘night mode’ at night.

Personally I prefer not to drive with what appears to be a torch shining in my face the whole journey.

Why?

Silent night?

2007-12-24T12:40:00.000Z

Everyone else is rushing around. Relatives are expecting them. They've got to get that final gift. There's not enough food.

I'm sat here, remarkably still, or so it seems.

The only place I have to be is at work tonight.

I'll come back from work tomorrow and crawl into bed, just as festivities are reaching their peak on Christmas morning.

I think I'll wake up later that afternoon, get some food and settle down to watch the Dr Who Christmas Special before getting ready for work.

Just me.

Because Christmas night I'm out again.

If not having some sort of celebration and silliness within the station itself, out in a patrol car in the freezing fog, with the heating on full blast.

There's no point me driving up for a few snatched hours with the family on Christmas Day; I'd just be tired out and would have to leave again as soon as I'd arrived. Celebrations for me are going to be postponed until Boxing Day. Rumour is that some of us may be able to sneak off early tonight or tomorrow night depending on who wants what. Here's hoping.

I write this not to get the sympathy vote, just to point out that some of us will be doing this Christmas very differently.

I'm sorry that this blog isn't as 'exciting' as it once was', but I've been gagged.

I would talk more of...

Attending crown court
Sorting out multi-vehicle pile-ups
Searching for missing persons
Guiding-in search and rescue helicopters
Pulling 16-hour shifts
Smashing windows
Running after people on foot
Labouring to get my learning portfolio up to date

...But I really, really can't. That's the tip, and I'm living the iceberg.

Wishing you all a very merry Christmas and all the best for 2008.

Especially those other Emergency Service workers who'll help pick up the pieces over the next few days.

Percentage points

2007-12-13T13:17:00.000Z

A work-related post, this one. Oh dear. Shoot me.

There’s been plenty of debate these last few days regarding the latest police pay award. Many members of the public are voicing that the police are getting paid enough anyway and do not deserve a 2.5% let alone a 1.9% increase. Fair enough, I don’t think MP’s are worth consistently above-inflation pay rises either. We're all entitled to our views.

But a lot of people seem to be missing the point in this debate.

The issue that officers are so pissed about is not the award of 2.5% or 1.9% as such. It’s the fact that our pay award was due in October. The Home Office decided to drag out the pay negotiations until December, and then decided in its generosity not to back-date the pay-award to when it was due in October. Hence the 2.5% recommended by an independent pay tribunal, and initially agreed upon by the Home Officer, becomes 1.9%. Three months working for less that you were due. Any employee would be annoyed at that.

It’s the Home Office saying one thing, and doing something completely different.

I bet Jacqui Smith’s official Christmas letter, sent out to all police stations, will be on many a station dartboard.

As to whether we should strike, or have the right to? That’s a different debate entirely…

Rhythm, disrupted

2007-12-03T01:10:00.000Z

The blog, in case you hadn't have guessed, has been left in limbo for a good few weeks now.

Since being 'discovered' by some bastard at work, who saw it fit not to talk to me first and advise, but to mention it to senior managers at work, I've not exactly been the most eager blogger on the block.

I've changed my blog address, deleted some key posts.

Hopefully that'll get people off my back.

If you are someone from work who's reading this though and still have a problem with anything. For god's sake come to me first. Otherwise, politely now, sod off.

In the meanwhile, dear friends & readers, you've not missed much really.

Work has been insanely busy, and that's all I can say now.

It'll take time to get back into the rhythm on here.

Just give me time.

Work

2007-11-10T21:56:00.000Z

Turns out the powers that be are aware of this blog.

Change of direction will be permanent then.

Though I have ceased and desisted talking about work (on good advice from an unexpected source). I still wish to voice inane chatter occasionally about the other ridiculous things that inhabit my life from time to time. Hence a changed address, and a strict focus on the inane things that inhabit my life out of work.

If someone from work was really determined to track me down again, I doubt it would be a challenge.

Only forward

2007-11-06T20:33:00.000Z

Something strange is happening to me.

I've got some motivation again.

Coping with work is one thing, but returning home to the lure of a comfy sofa, idly browsing Facebook or submitting to a multitude of other distractions, means that more often than not the spare time evaporates and next thing I know it's time to crawl into bed.

Fed up with this seemingly endless blurred sprawl of spare time with little or no achievement, I've resolved to start running again, and more importantly to get my work-related study back up to speed.

Funny thing is, like a lot of things it's the getting started that's the hard thing. Once you get the ball rolling, approaching the repetitive task you previously dreaded can seem like a breeze. Hell, I spent long enough trying to get things moving, on a whole number of fronts.

Though I've repeatedly burnt myself out since I changed careers, and I probably needed that idle spare time after all. But now that I'm coping well with work (so I believe) I have little excuse to procrastinate further over neglected duties of body and mind.

Book-tag!

2007-11-01T22:45:00.000Z

Rose 'tagged' me with a booked-themed post. So here we go...

Four childhood books?

The Lord of the Rings by J R R Tolkien
What else can one say about this book that hasn't been said already? Quite a challenge as a 12-year old but many a late-night was spent lost in Middle Earth.

The Chronicles of Narnia by C S Lewis
Not quite as heavyweight as 'Rings, but equally inspired.

Danny the Champion of the World by Roald Dahl
'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' is usually the obvious choice by this author, but this story somehow struck a chord with me as a child.

The Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
A memorable and rather surreal picture book from my childhood.

Four Authors I'll read again and again.

Jeffrey Eugenides
Though he's only written two books in ten years, they're both masterpieces.

Sara Wheeler
My favourite travel writer who I credit with kick-starting my polar obsession. Humour, natural history and incredible journeys.

David Mitchell
Glad to say I started reading him before he hit it really big with 'Cloud Atlas'. Mitchell manages to take clever ideas and propel them with luscious, lyrical prose and engaging characterisation.

Peter F Hamilton
Consistently the best sci-fi Author I've read; his 'Night's Dawn' Trilogy is simply awesome reading - an incredible space opera with a mean dash of horror. Kinda of like Babylon 5 meets Event Horizon.

The First Four on my to-read list

Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
The Engines of God by Jack McDevitt
Six Days by Jeremy Bowen
Endurance by Alfred Lansing

Four Books I'd Take to a Desert Island

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
The Night's Dawn Trilogy by Peter F Hamilton
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Terra Incognita by Sara Wheeler

Next up... I tag... Courtney, Northern Monkey, Beth

Mr. Scruff - Honeydew

2007-10-30T23:34:00.001Z

Hopefully Girlfriend will get tickets no probs to see him in December. I love his music, and I simply love the animation in this video. I like the cute comment someone put on Youtube - "I wish the world was like this." Y'know what? I do too.

One day in the calendar

2007-10-29T18:33:00.000Z

I don’t know where in my old age it started but Christmas lost its sparkle and mystery somewhere along the way.

Why is it each year that collectively we seem to loose all sense, spend such insane amounts of money, get far too emotional and over-indulgent, before swearing that we’ll not do it again next year.

It’s October.

And we’ve got weeks and weeks of this overkill still to go.

It’s only one day in the calendar for god sakes.

Be merry people; but keep your heads whilst all around you are losing theirs.

(With thanks to Kipling)

People talk

2007-10-25T01:16:00.000+01:00

It was subtly mentioned this evening by a colleague that some people I work with are aware of this blog.

It's been suggested that it's perhaps a not a good idea to blog about the job.

I've come to the conclusion, as I have been doing for a while now, that it's probably not a good idea to blog about the job.

Which is a shame really.

I've tried to share over the past time a few aspects of what is a weird & wonderful job from the point-of-view of a newbie. I've taken great strides to stay anonymous as an officer and made sure that I haven't identified the force that I work for.

However, I simply don't think I can take the risk anymore. People talk.

So if "I don't talk about work that much" as I remember saying once before, that's why.

Court

2007-10-11T21:10:00.000+01:00

...Wasn't too bad come to think about it.

Apart from the waiting...

The defence turned up in good time.

I turned up on time.

As did the magistrates.

The prosecutor however, did not.

Some four hours late, and after some excuses and heavy-duty faxing, the trial finally got underway.

The questions from the prosecution were straight forward enough when they eventually came to me in the stand.

I stood trembling inwardly in anticipation of cross-examination by the defence.

"Officer, did you actually witness the alleged incident?"

"I did not, no. I arrived some time after the event, having been deployed there by our control room."

"No further questions your worships."

Beautiful.

Back to life, back to reality

2007-10-10T20:40:00.000+01:00

In an act of unusual financial recklesness i went and bought an X-Box 360 this afternoon; the 'killer app' that is Halo 3 has worn down all my reserves of willpower and I've surrendered to the teenager within me. Well hey, it's the autumn, the nights are drawing in. See, that's a good reason too, don't you think?

And it's back to a sort of normality tomorrow. As in the start of a another set of shifts back at my usual station, not the relxed small-town outpost I've been enjoying for the last few weeks on a community attachment.

So it's goodbye to...

Numerous cups of tea
Foot patrol
Finishing on time (for the most)
Hanging out with the PCSO's
Having proper conversations with the public
Wondering "Well how shall I fill the last few hours?"
Updating my pocket notebook in-situ
Attending a number of incidents along the line of "Report of 6-8 juvaniles causing a nuisance...."

And it's back to...

Attemptingtoinvestigatecrimeatthesametimesasattendingincomingincidentsandallocatedincidents andissuingfixedpenaltytickets [*pause for breath*]
Quick barked conversations with the public; trying not to be rude whilst edging out the door to the next job
Deciding whether it's worth taking the formal break today or ploughing on to the next
Going to one end of the sector for a job before being called to the opposite side for something urgent
Realising I haven't eaten all day
Always having one ear on the radio
Thinking I should have been off over an hour ago
Finding new and original ways to write up quite why I couldn't make it to an allocated job

In a perverse wasy, I've kinda' missed the latter.

Oh, and I almost forgot, I'm due at court tomorrow...

Enjoying it whilst it lasts

2007-10-03T23:13:00.000+01:00

Remember me?

I used to blog here didn't I?

Some time ago I got major fecked off and disillusioned with work. I got majorly tired... then, oh dear, I discovered Facebook.

Lack of motivation multiplied by an surprisingly addictive 'social networking' site resulted in my neglecting this little part of the internet that I created.

Sorry.

But I'm back. In a number of ways.

Though I'm not reborn, relaunching or reinventing... A notable birthday and a trip away to somewhere familiar yet still completely undiscovered... Has found me returning home, to life and to work, with the motivation and will to see things through that I think I was sorely lacking a few weeks back.

Still with me?

Good.

Work-wise (the cause of so much joy and ills) - it probably helps as well that I've not gone straight back onto response driving. I'm spending two weeks with the community beat team learning about a very different type of policing. After suffering endless jokes about the number of cups of tea consumed (from fellow response officers)... I've genuinely enjoyed doing frankly old-school things like (get this) walking, yes walking the beat. Meeting members of the public in a situation where there's not an urgent problem to be solved, and I can actually take time to talk and listen to them? That's a whole new situation to me.

But then the radio goes. There's a job going off somewhere and something in me is tugging to grab some response car keys and go whizzing out to it like the headless frazzled chicken that I was before. I ignore the radio for the most, I'm not response... I'm with the Community Team... But the instinct is irrepressible.

However I'm taking time to enjoy the calm.

While it lasts.

Yorkshire Airlines

2007-10-02T18:51:00.001+01:00

'Proper' blog posts on their way I promise.

In the meanwhile, let me leave thee with this grand aver-tise-ment.

Makes me reet proud.

Sweden, September 2007

2007-09-30T13:44:00.001+01:00

P1010125
Originally uploaded by orbital_ing

Finally uploaded & labelled my pictures from the recent trip. Click and enjoy. As always, I love to hear feedback in whatever form.

Journal entries

2007-09-25T23:35:00.000+01:00

Random scribbles from the latest trip...

"Much as I like Ryanair's cheap fares, they aren't half a bunch of Nazis at times, marching up and down the aisles. They'd stow your internal organs in the overhead lockers if they weren't attached."

"Part of me still feels at home, and part of me realises that it's been a staggering 18 years since I last lived here."

"Apart from a few a few incessantly annoying habits, Sweden remains practically utopian. Wide open spaces, friendly people, efficient and cheap public transport... Hell, even Swedish TV is watchable these days."

"We taxied into the rather minute Gothenburg City Airport, which unlike it's larger sister Landvetter, gives Humberside a run for it's money in the tin-pot stakes."

"The polite person in me finds it quite frustrating that the relatives insist on paying for everything. The backpacker in me just keeps quiet and continues with the thank-you's..."

"The one thing I had insisted on doing that night was seeing the England football international, so Kenneth found an ex-pat pub in the city and we decamped there. Big screen, complete with boisterous, swearing crowd and half-decent pub grub. Ah, just like home..."

"Sightseeing has dwindled, through exhaustion, into retail therapy."

"I'd deliberately booked a slightly slower coach than the straight-through express, thinking I'd see more of the countryside and towns I'd visited. Seven cramped hours later I was regretting the decision."

"Following a long and ineptly-navigated walk back to the hostel..."

"...And find a Czech bistro in town memorable for it's GIGANTIC chairs."

"Food came in small and delicious, or large and average portions."

"The DJ keeps it cutting-edge, the crowd go wild for it and the atmosphere becomes irresistible."

I forgot to mention...

2007-09-14T19:13:00.000+01:00

...I'm on holiday by the way.

Until the 20th.

Currently typing this in Sweden, noth of Goteborg (or Gothenburg to give it it's English title).

Not really doing much touristy stuff, rather concentrating most on seeing relatives.

However, I'm heading up to Stockholm on Sunday to spend a few days there. In all my years of living Sweden and visiting the country, I've never set foot in the Swedish capital. Can't wait.

Look after Britain whilst I'm away, won't you?

Jane Tomlinson

2007-09-04T17:30:00.000+01:00

On the deeply unfortunate subject of tragic deaths of remarkable people; like many others this afternoon I was saddened to hear of the passing of Jane Tomlinson.

What more can one say?

Another remarkable individual doing extraordinary things in extraordinary circumstances.

An example to us all.

Diana

2007-08-31T21:43:00.000+01:00

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...

2007-08-31T17:11:00.000+01:00

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

2007-08-29T22:54:00.000+01:00

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

2007-08-26T16:12:00.000+01:00

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

2007-08-20T19:09:00.000+01:00

...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

2007-08-15T12:30:00.000+01:00

Cute moment(s) of the day

2007-08-13T17:42:00.000+01:00

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

2007-08-09T12:01:00.001+01:00

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

2007-08-04T00:22:00.000+01:00

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

2007-08-02T22:16:00.001+01:00

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

Stealth Mode

2007-07-27T12:53:00.000+01:00

Most of last night's shift was spent in an unmarked car, much to the delight of the general public.

We'd drift through some part of the town centre, spot some general nuisance, hop out and say "Excuse me", often met by a stunned responce of "Where'd you come from?!" followed by swift apologies.

The other part of the evening was spent doing some subtle obs in a location . Like a stakeout, just ten times more dull than you see in the movies. So we drive down this back road, park outside a member-of-the-public's house (unrelated) to get observations on this particular stretch. Several minutes later MOP comes out of his house, looks at us a little concerned, and goes back in.

"Ah, I suppose we better reassure him." I suggest to my colleague, and quikly hop out to have a word with him.

"Hello there sir. It's the police. We're doing some observations in this area, but I'm afraid I can't really tell what you we're doing."

"Ah right, that's lucky, I was just about to call you."

Maximo Park - Our Velocity

2007-07-21T09:44:00.001+01:00

I cannot get this song out of my head at the moment...

Oh no, not another 'social networking' site...

2007-07-20T13:32:00.000+01:00

After repeated nagging from a few buddies of mine I've finally joined Facebook.

More wonderful ways to waste hours on rainy days.

Any of you regular readers on it?

Let me know and I'll link to you...

How'd you find me?

2007-07-18T16:32:00.000+01:00

Intrigued by the results of others' sitemeter results, I decided to sign this blog up to it to.

And boy, are the results... Eye-opening.... To say the least.

Seems people have chanced upon my blog with the following google search phrases:

transformers snapshots

Fair enough, I mean have been banging on in a geeky fashion how much the kid in me is looking forward to seeing the movie.

target culture

Ah yes. I hate it.

late for work every day

Thankfully, I never am. Powers that be would be rather pissed, as would the shift coming off...

Chris Rae funeral Cromarty

Who?!

inspector monkfish

Oh, he's going to love that...

Stacey

Probably the most heartbreaking words I've ever had to meet. I miss you chick.

why people kill

Good point. Why?

Picture of UK Police Officer in full Uniform

Ooer. Calm yourself, ladies.

Prize-winning Sheppard's Pie

Huh?

Roadblocks

2007-07-14T22:09:00.000+01:00

Whilst I was stood out on a busy roundabout of one of the county's main arterial roads this morning...

I realised that I get a strangely perverse pleasure from sealing off roads and telling people they simply cannot go that way.

We've all got to get a little schadenfreude from somewhere.

Keeps us human.

Sicko

2007-07-12T15:11:00.001+01:00

Love him or loathe him - this time round he's got a very good point indeed...

Change of scenery

2007-07-10T11:56:00.000+01:00

Sunday night was interesting then; the final shift of this block.

Instead of covering my usual market town in the south of the county, because of staff shortages they send me to the other side of the county to assist in covering a somewhat larger market town.

Thank god I was double-crewed on the 22:00 through 07:00 shift. Basically I turned up with little idea how to even get into the police station itself, let alone which sector I’d be covering or who the hell I’d be working with.

Turns out I'll crew one of two cars covering the town and a massive rural area.

Highlights of the night:

First job – assist other unit at a domestic where male turns up at his ex’s place, pissed-off that she’s got a new boyfriend. Rants & raves outside for a bit before going round the back of her place and putting a brick through one of the windows of her car and ripping off all the windscreen wipers. On arrival he states to the other unit “You’re probably here about the damage I caused then.” Why thank you.
Blue-light run for miles down one of the county’s main arterial roads at high speed. unsurprisingly we set off a speed camera which is solved with a quick transmission of “Control, can you show a speed camera activation at blah-blah.” Sorted. Report of animals on the carriageway – deer, possibly cows (?!). Area-search no trace when we get there. They’ve doubtless mooved on.
Report of domestic. Male and female, female states she wants male to be reomoved from the house. Arrive and they're arguing - she slaps him right in front of us. We seperate the two, give a little advice (especially to her), and he then agrees to be taken to a friend's place for a few hours so they can both cool off. As he's walking to the car she then declares "I wan't him back here now so we can talk this over."
Just before we knock off close to 07:00, report of male coming into one of the train stations on an early-morning service refusing to pay his fare. Foreign male, big burly bloke apparently and the train guard was reluctant to challenge him as he was clutching a piece of official paperwork detaining his court appearance at one of the county’s courts on an assault charge. As two 6ft+’ers we form the welcoming committee and negotiate for him to leave the train and escort him to buy a ticket for the next train, which he does. Phew. Lucky really – an arrest at 06:45 for something would have probably seen us stay on till at least 10:00.

Being out of my usual sector, there was no real paperwork to fill in, as anything I did pick up would be simply assigned to local officers to investigate. Basically the night was just job-to-job.

In a way that’s how police work should be really.

I can dream.

Five by Five

2007-07-04T21:40:00.000+01:00

Having been tagged by Girl Next Door a little while back, and being a bit bored this evening. Here's another of those random question thingies...

* * * * *

WHAT WERE YOU DOING TEN YEARS AGO?

Finishing my first year of uni. My god... Such promise. Such fun.

SONGS TO WHICH YOU KNOW ALL THE LYRICS:

Off the top of my head... Those that come to mind.

'Insomnia' by Faithless
'Hold On' by Sarah McLachlan
'Better Things' by Massive Attack
'Porcelain' by Moby
'Pedestal' by Portishead

FIVE THINGS YOU WOULD DO IF YOU WERE A MILLIONAIRE:

Buy a house (maybe then I might be able to afford one in this goddamn market!)
Travel. Loads.
Invest.
Live off the interest.
Pay off any of my friends or families debts.

FIVE BAD HABITS:

Procrastinating
Forgetting my point halfway through a sentence
Driving too fast (ironic that)
Sniffling (and not blowing my nose)
Buying yet more T-Shirts

FIVE THINGS YOU LIKE DOING:

Travelling
Reading
Driving
Imagining
Watching quality TV... Eg. Lost, Prison Break, Battlestar Galactica

FIVE THINGS YOU’LL NEVER WEAR AGAIN:

A fair number of the T-Shirts I own, but refuse to throw
Shell suits
Collar-less shirts (the ones that were big in the 90's)
Bright white trainers
Clothing marked 'XL' when I used to like the baggy look as an indie-kid student

FIVE FAVOURITE TOYS:

New Car (I got me a Focus 1.6 Zetec the other week... Oooo, did I not mention?)
PC
Mobile
Digital Camera
Anything with a Bluetooth connection

TAG! You’re it!

Don't Blame The Stars

Cut My Life Into Pieces

After The Jump

Think, Think, Think

Pics move, in mysterious ways...

2007-07-03T22:02:00.000+01:00

Two things...

1. I've uploaded & labelled the Dublin Pics... Yay!

2. Yahoo Photos is winding up its service. Boo. However they have offered a 'shift your pics over to Flickr for free' service. Yay! The archive of my past travel pics are currently being shifted over to Flickr and will appear soon.

In the meanwhile, here's the Dublin shots... Enjoy & please let me know what you think.

www.flickr.com

orbital_ing's Dublin - July 2007 photoset

Dublin Rocks!

2007-07-02T17:19:00.000+01:00

Here's a quick taster.

More to be uploaded in the coming week.

Suffice as to say...

Dublin rocks!

Lemon Jelly - Nice Weather For Ducks

2007-06-26T02:21:00.001+01:00

Perfect soundtrack to the torrential rain.

Gotta' love the big-band break down towards the end.

As someone commented on YouTube:

"Omg! Karl Marx on LSD!"

Genius.

Then it all went a little bit Pete Tong...

2007-06-26T01:49:00.000+01:00

So I head back up north for the weekend and all breaks loose.

Thierry Henry signs for Barcelona.
Two of my long-term friends break up their respective relationships. One is married, the other unmarried with a young child.
I end up waking up on the sofa of a friend-of-a-friend's place at stupid-o'clock on Sunday morning with no idea what the hell they're called and where my other drinking buddy got to. I had to discretely look around the living room for a bill and hope there was only one bloke living in the house and that was his name.
Due to torrential rain and randomly open/closed roads my 90 min return journey took closer to 4 & 1/2hrs.

Next time I get all relaxed & zen I think I'll declare it a little less loudly.

However I'm now packed & ready to scoot down to see the girlfriend and then onward to Dublin on Thursday. Thanks for all the tips & things from everyone for Dublin. I shall most certainly report back with experiences & pics.

Everything Zen

2007-06-22T00:42:00.000+01:00

I've got a week's 'protected learning' back at the training unit which has been, to be frank, spectacularly dull. It has however been lifted by seeing all of my training colleagues again. What his me especially this evening is how these people, over time, unexpectedly became friends, as well as colleagues. Not what I would have expected when we first started out; such a disparate bunch.

We've come a long way.

So tonight was a nice chilled Chinese buffet with a bunch of them and a few drinkies.

What's chilling me out even more though is the prospect of...

*gasp*

Time off.

No wonder I've been feeling so stressed at times, I realised only the other day that I've been pretty much working solid since January the 8th!

Days off here & there, but not a proper week-or-so solid break.

Just tomorrow to go, then it's off until July 2nd!

Even more exciting, I'm off travelling again.

Only a shift hop this time, but girlfriend & I are going on a city break to Dublin next week for four days.

Not a moment too soon.

It's what we do

2007-06-13T22:15:00.000+01:00

Some oh-so big and brave soul has been posting on a number of police-related blogs, sharing their wit charm and supposed glee over the stabbing of a police officer in Luton.

Clearly they want to get a reaction.

Usually I bite my tounge and don't rise to it.

For once...

I replied.

* * * *

Anon.

Know what PIG stands for?

Pride. Guts & intelligence.

But hey, anon, abuse as all you want.

There'll come a day when you need us.

And then what will you say to us, when you really, really need us.

When you get bottled down the pub.

When your place gets burgled.

When you've wrapped your car around the central reservation.

Protect the public?

Yes.

Including you?

Yes.

Because it's what we do.

The Cinematic Orchestra - All That You Give

2007-06-08T18:03:00.001+01:00

Amongst all the stress...

This is chilled bliss.

Late night work worry

2007-06-07T02:15:00.000+01:00

I get second thoughts about the job.

On the most frustrating days, even allowing for urgent incidents, I can struggle to investigate my own workload crimes.

What's worse is that from attending incidents you can pick up even more crimes for investigation to add to your ongoing allocated crimes.

What's most annoying though is when you get something allocated and told that it is your priority. Even though the things you've already got on your plate are supposed to be your priority.

Then an urgent comes in and that supersedes all previous priorities.

Later you're asked why you didn't do various things in time and why you haven't got 'X' number of ticks-in-boxes from your shifts on patrol.

Prioritisation is a skill, but there comes a point when you cannot split yourself into five bloody separate officers to do five different things.

Blame falls downwards. And one of the most depressing things about the job so far seems to be that sometimes it's not always about doing the right thing, but doing enough to cover your own back to deflect the downward cascade of blame, crap and shifting goalposts.

Because chronically stretched resources mean that you simply cannot do the right thing by everybody.

London 2012

2007-06-06T12:20:00.000+01:00

Design gurus strike again.

This sucks.

Sign the petition.

Please.

I'm so proud that the games are coming to London, but this is a naff logo to unveil to a global audiance of billions.

Best man for the job?

2007-06-01T19:11:00.000+01:00

So on this set of rest days I did a bit of a round-trip to see my brother down south, back via the girlfriend.

My brother specifically I hadn’t seen for a good few months now and I made a real effort to drive the few hundred miles to see him as he’s going abroad.

With work.

In a few weeks.

To sunny Helmand province.

Afghanistan.

Hence the special effort, to see him before he goes.

Over breakfast my brother asked me if I would like to be his best man, which was a real surprise and honour. Last time round he chose one of his friends, and to be honest I was absolutely fine with that. Honoured I am, ah yes, but there is responsibility.

Even though it won’t be until next April, I’m a little intimidated by getting up and speaking in front of a few hundred people; taking a fine line between humour and ceremony.

However there are the fun parts. I get an active party in planning his ‘stag’ do.

Adventure sports?

Strippers?

Adventure sports with strippers?

Thankfully I’ve got plenty of time.

But at the rate this year is going…

Go together like a horse and carriage

2007-05-28T15:00:00.000+01:00

Had one of those sweet 'family' moments in the last-hour-or-so where my brother rang me to say he'd asked he girlfriend to marry him.

Awww, bless.

Granted many of us thought it inevitable - considering they're well rather matched and have been 'going steady' for some time now. Still... A surprise. And a wonderful one at that.

Which reminds me that I have a cousins' wedding to attend in August, and some of girlfriends' close friends are getting married in June/July if my memory serves me right.

So I better brush the dust off my suit and sling it in the direction of the dry cleaners. Note to self.

Some say I scrub up alright, but more often that not I'm the one sat at the back of these 'do's fiddling with my tie and looking awkward.

Which is why, god-forbid should any lass be insane enough to want to do the big-M with me, I'd much prefer to have a small intimate ceremony, rather than a big expensive one.

The story of my life - I'm uncomfortable being the centre of attention and having parties in my honour; I much prefer being a guest.

Becks is Back!

2007-05-26T13:12:00.001+01:00

Thank god Steve McClaren has seen sense and recalled David Beckham.

Every player has off games, dips in form, but when other players seem to be going through the motions for 90 minutes, more often than not he's the hardest working player in an England shirt.

So what about the fame - he didn't ask to be put on a pedestal, he's simply got where he by playing a game he loves with a quite remarkable talent. If you're going to get given a bit of money for it, are you going to refuse?

He's had his moments of madness, but I for one will always raise a glass to a simply awesome player.

Transformers

2007-05-23T00:18:00.001+01:00

The fanboy in me can't wait for this.

Read the comics religiously as a kid.

And Starscream's moves? Too cool.

Fetch the popcorn.

Blogizzle

2007-05-21T20:46:00.000+01:00

Being the easily amused type I found a link to this site on Northern Monkey's blog and then spent ages wetting myself with laughter as I ran site after site through the translation engine.

Try...

The Conservative Party

BBC News

or that bastion of middle-England

The Daily Mail

Love it.

Sudden and serious

2007-05-18T13:50:00.000+01:00

Oh my god.

Last night's shift took a sudden and very serious turn.

Suffice as to say that it will doubtless go to crown court, I can say little else.

Watching the local news this lunchtime was a little surreal.

Don't forget your scythe

2007-05-17T01:01:00.000+01:00

Busy shift.

And what should I get?

But sudden death #5.

Was it something I said?

Target Culture

2007-05-15T17:17:00.000+01:00

Shit falls downwards.

Which is why, as a junior responce officer I could not help but agree with the following articles...

Firstly the thoughts of the Police Federation - the closest coppers have to a 'union'.

Secondly the thoughts of an experienced beat bobby.

At the end of each shift my colleagues & I fill out what we affectionately call a 'bean counter'. Basically a 'ticks in boxes' grid of what incidents, arrests, tickets etc we've had in the course of each shift and fax it off to the relevant department.

Ah, the joy of paperwork.

Whilst I can kinda' see the point of measuring officers, the fact that some incidents we go to can tie us up all day and get us no 'ticks' at all is rather frustrating. We can spend entire shifts serving the public good in some way shape or form - but oh no... You can't measure that can you?

Don't fear the reaper

2007-05-14T20:30:00.000+01:00

This last time year I was lucky enough to have navigated the course of my life without having seen a dead body.

In the space of just over two months I've now seen four.

We get called out occasionally to what are known as 'sudden deaths'.

SD's are, from a police point of view, where a death occurs out of the care of the medical profession and is unexpected. A police officer will attend after the paramedics to give the bodies a cursory check to make sure that there are no suspicious circumstances. Next you fill out a Death Reported form, which is a checklist of questions you have to ensure you ask the next of kin attending, whatever stage of grief they may be at. It's delicate balance finding the right tone sometimes.

Before I stated this job I thought the sight of the bodies may stay with me, but I'm surprised in myself that this does not appear to have been the case. I can attend, be sympathetic and do the necessaries. But part of me manages to stay a little... Disconnected.

Maybe it's the fact that the bodies I've seen this far have all been old. They've generally died in their sleep. They've seen a good innings.

Question is though, how will I react when faced with someone cut down in their prime?