Well here is an exciting time. I have now reached the end of my two years of probation and as a consequence I need to present my portfolio to a Chief Superintendent who will probably look at it and go, "Ooooo that's nice." This is not meant to be any disrespect to the chief, I happen to know which pub he used to frequent and so my informants tell me he is an sound guy, but I can't help but think he has got better things to do that read the "fit the box" testimonies I have had to do over the last two years. However, the rules are rules I guess.

Had a really nice experience the other day. I was on my way to a job, in the sense that I had left the building and was heading towards the car when a call came over the radio that a male officer was needed to search two males who had been brought into custody. Now, a few minutes earlier I had been trawling through the station for a number of different reasons and saw at least four other male officers doing, quite frankly, bog all and surprisingly none of them answered the call. Being the keen person what I is I did call up and volunteered. When I found these two males they were in the custody of two quite attractive female police officers (can't say WPC apparently) and I can guarantee that neither of them would have objected to being frisked by their captors. However, policy is policy and I did what was necessary. Now I know that in comparison to some colleagues I am probably classed, on the whole, as being the "good cop". Even so it brings a lump to my throat when you hear a guy you have searched say to you, "That copper was a nice bloke."

Now the lump in my throat I experience is normally due to the fact that in my two years of probation I have not had any member of the general public send a letter in stating what a wonderful person I am for dealing with their harrassment case/threats to kill etc. Something is wrong somewhere, am I viewed by the public as being Mr. Nasty? Maybe I need to search each of them in the same way before I take details for a common assault? I can see it now, "Nice bloke that copper, he made me take me belt off and empty me pockets before 'e could talk to me. I told 'im me trainers smelt like **** but 'e told me that after a shift 'is boots smelt worse."

So what do I say to my Chief Super? "Well our customers love me but the general public hate me?" Ho hum!

On another note. I have just had a shift where I have experienced two dead people in three days. The film the "Sixth Sense" springs to mind, i.e. "I see dead people". I appear to be attracting road crashes as well. Even after I had finished a shift I was the first officer on scene to deal with it. How this chap survived I do not know. All I can say is that someone upstairs was watching him that night. I am not a particularly religious person but even my thoughts were along the lines of "Jesus, how did he walk away from that?"

Well, better go to bed, need to be up in the morning. Personal circumstances have changed in a a big way so may not be able to update this blog for a little while, no change there. I have had threats made on my life so if anyone hears that I have been murdered, IT WAS SIMON!!!!!

Youth are liars! That's not a non diverse, stereotyping statement to encompass all youth, but in this job the ones you normally meet are, quite frankly, liars of the first degree. Casing point. Today, whilst on duty, I was called to a disused nursing home in order to answer a call that there were youths drinking and hurling abuse at the happy Joe public that happened to put their oar in and make a comment (aaaaah, it's the school holidays). I turn up at the address, eventually as the control room did not have a Scoobies as to it's location. On arrival all seems quiet until I notice a young girl standing at a window inside the building. Unfortunately she spots me and you see her mouth the words, "OH FARK, IT'S DA FILTH. RUN FOR YER LIVES." Okay, slight poetic justice but the point is the same. Not knowing their exit point I firstly go in the wrong direction and then secondly take the correct part of the 50:50 chance and come across two girls in the grounds of this building. Of course the little darlings run, naturally, I run.

This brings me to another point. Have you ever tried running after someone wearing a stab vest? In fact, it's not just the stab vest, it's also the load vest that contains your Airwaves (let's fry your testicles) radio, your mobile phone ('cos Airwaves is carp and doesn't always work), ASP aka extendable truncheon/club, torch, handcuffs and all the paperwork you can shove in the spare pockets. I have seen slow motion films of dogs running, I've also seen the bit from Monty Python's meaning of Life when a man chooses how to die and is chased off a cliff by topless ladies running in slow motion, and if you can imagine the up and down/side to side movement in those images you can imagine how the equipment on a load vest moves when a police officer runs. I find both hands grasping at my equipment (ooo-err missus) to stop it flying off in different directions. That combined with my large frame (yeah, yeah, coffee and doughnuts), it makes running almost as impossible as it is for a bumble bee to fly.

However, I digress, either way I caught up with the two young "ladies" in question, one of which manages to vault over a gate and the other, let's face it, her ass was grass and I had the weed whacker! Unlikely for her, she was the one I saw inside the building when I first arrived. The first question that sprang to mind was "WHAT WERE YOU DOING IN THERE." To which she replied, "I WASN'T IN THE BUILDING I WAS JUST STANDING OUTSIDE." Now this kind of statement just sets me a challenge, how many times can I catch her out by questioning every answer she gives me. I don't think I've had a more fun Sunday afternoon for a long time, especially with the mood I was in as well. Even when I told her that I would take her back to her parents she seemed to know exactly where my car was parked, which of course raised the question "HOW DID YOU KNOW MY CAR WAS PARKED HERE?" I don't often call people a liar to their face but this afternoon I made up for it.

Now, at the end of the day, the building was derelict, the window used to gain entry could have been broken a long time ago, and so it would be hard to tell if my "captive" had actually contributed to this. However, in it's own small way justice was served when I took her back to her parents' house and basically told them that she was the number one suspect in a criminal damage/burglary offence. The slight bit of justice, and pleasure, I got from the escapade and the inconvenience of running (bloody hell I got out of my car!) was that her mother has now grounded her for three months and taken her mobile phone away from her!!!!!!!!! Ahhh, who needs the law courts!

Apologies for this being such a long time since the last blog but I've been a tad busy and my personal life of late has been . . . interesting.

As an avid reader of David Copperfield's "Coppersblog" I am glad to say that my Christmas was far less eventful than his. Why? If I knew that I would market a drug to stop people hating each other. Trust me, it really was quiet!!!! Yes I definitely saw some constables, who normally wander around the station in plain clothes, kitted up and ready for action, but it would seem that peace and goodwill, on the whole, applied to all men/women/ethnic etc., you get the gist.

One of these uniformed people who spend their time in the volume crime unit did say at one point, "I've just got to go for a wee and then we should go out on patrol as I've spent too much ******* time in this station."

This brings me onto another point. I have had an attachment to CID in the past, well something akin to CID, well at least I thought it was, errmmm, now I'm confused. Either way, it involved being a police officer who had not been classed as independent, but was deemed worthy enough to go and speak to some extremely "pleasant" customers, who lived in some "dodgy" areas where no man, without a stab vest, had gone before.

On this particular attachment my colleagues (in this case probationers who had joined at the same time as I) had to deal with what could only be described as "the scrapings from the litter tray that the cat could not use to cover up it's own mess". Granted, we were only trainee police officers and it did give me an idea as to some of the dross I would experience at some time in my career, but it has left me with the feeling that I would rather dunk my head in a vat of boiling oil than deal with crime reports of people who have lost their mobile phone, whilst intoxicated, but are sure that it was their best mate [insert name here] that nicked it "'cos they've been shagging each other behind my back the bastard". It has also left me with the sense that I have no desire to be posted to plain clothes and would probably transfer to another force/agency if I was assigned to this.

References to "Little Britain" have sprung to mind when I was on this weird and wonderful attachment. There's no escaping it, you just meet these people and they believe that the loss of their phone as as bad as their mother being hacked to death by a mad axe murderer recently released from the whacky bin for good behaviour or they've been misunderstood.

Okay, if you've done the exams, the interview training, etc. then the job is probably quite interesting in a paperwork sort of way, but if you are at my stage in the career (but in some respects force allocation to departments seems to be a lottery) you are just a resource and you can be assigned anywhere in the policing area with little or no training and then left there to, errrm, die? This could well be my ticket out of the police in so far as I will need to find another job. Inflexible, maybe, but a complete phobia, oh yes! With any luck this sort of "re-shuffle" will happen after my two year probation so in which case I can change forces, go to Austrlia etc., etc.

Anywho, on a more sober moment in my last few days on duty I have had to attend two incidents that involved dead people. To their relatives I have to say, errm, happy Christmas?

Despite the these deaths I do give the relatives my deepest sympathies, even the one who smacked the ambulance person as they believed they were not doing their job properly in reviving a relative who had been dead for at least three hours. However, to the other death I had to be involved with, I do sincerely send my thoughts to the deceased's family.

Now on this final note. To those who may actually read this drivel, have a good New Year and I will tap some stuff in 2007.

Christmas

Just realised it is Christmas day. Am going to be working but I'm sure some of you will have a merry Christmas. What do I want for Christmas? Peace and goodwill to all men would be nice.

Always the optimist.

Seriously, I hope you enjoy yours. Hey, who am I trying to kid, nobody reads this stuff!

Video Evidence

Right then. Been working on a trivial case that has required me to obtain evidence from CCTV footage in a well known building society. CCTV is one of those things you either love or hate. I for one love it unless I am on a night shift and you are just about to sit down to eat something, yes the police are human and we do eat when we get the chance, and the radio springs to life with "Hello control, this is CCTV, are you looking at your monitor? There's a person acting suspiciously in the park." Now, bearing in mind the time this kind of call comes in there's always someone acting suspiciously in the park. The main reason for this is due to the clubs closing for the night and the usual drunkards, such a harsh word let's call them "pissheads", losing their automatic pilot and ending up in the bandstand. This normally happens just as soon as you have lovingly prepared your tin of soup/macaroni/stew/stuff, sat down, placed and then placed the spoon in the bowl. You then are required to leap up, put your stab vest back on and head towards the offender who by now may or may not have fallen into the river or at least vomited somewhere nearby. Nine times out of ten you are able to revive the said person and send them back on their homing pigeon course and that's it. However, by this time your stodge has gone cold or been thrown away as it was assumed you'd be away for a while.

That's one thing I like about night shifts. The hour after all the clubs are shut you get to witness a phenomena that most people will never see. Drunk people going home. We are not talking about the ones that cause criminal damage or try to punch anything that moves, we are talking about the people who still manage to find their way home without a taxi. It's a bit like a scene from "Dawn of the dead". Zombi type persons walking along the road. When they are this drunk everything from a crack in the pavement to a lamp post is a challenge. The most interesting bit is when they reach a kerb and have to cross a road. By the way they walk you would think that the kerb was 6ft high and it always amazes me how high they lift their feet to climb it.

Anywho, I digress, but CCTV does have its uses, one good example is where a male was alledged to have assaulted a male causing him to suffer a fractured skull but the CCTV footage shows that he was having an argument with the victim but it was a completely different male who casually walked up to the pair and smacked the injured party (IP) in the head. Also in the case that I originally started waffling about it has its uses as well.

Scenario: complaint by a bloke that he had been shouted at and dragged around by a female offender, we'll call her Delores, into the local building society before being ejected by staff. Delores was arrested, interviewed, and denied the whole thing and said that she had been assaulted by the "IP". Let's bear in mind the fact that the "IP" and the "offender" are both well known, erm, well not very upstanding members of the community.

It took a little while to obtain evidence of the event. The town CCTV amazingly managed to miss every bit of the incident!?!?!?!? However, the last bit of evidence was from inside of the building society. Hey presto, as clear as day you see a lot of the incident, enough to give the offender a happy Christmas £80 fine. The footage itself starts off showing a number of upstanding members of the public "gawping" at what is happening outside the building society before Delores drags "Herbert" into the branch, rants and raves before being ejected by staff, and then outside of the branch you can still see Delores having a go at "Herbert". After viewing the footage Delores says, "Are you sure you've got the right video for that day?" Arrrrggghhhh, nope, it was a random tape I acquired from "Police, Camera, Action." Other comments were, "Well I don't think I was wearing that coat", to which my response was, "You were when you were booked into custody."

The funniest part of this incident was that when Delores viewed the video I had ro rewind it to the correct place. As I did this she said "Look. You can see him pushing me!!" It had to be explained clearly and slowly that the tape was, in fact, going backwards and if I was given the chance she could witness it in real time and going forwards. After a couple of viewings the comments went on to the lines of "My butt was smaller then." Ho hum.

Oh, on a completely different subject, if you are using your mobile phone when driving please do not try and deny it by saying "I've got an ear infection and I don't have a phone like that." Ear infections can easily be proved or disproved, but it's the "phone like that" bit. Errmmm, phone like what?

Carol Singers

Cor blimey, there were actually some genuine Carol singers at the door last night. It wasn't the normal youth who bang on the door and sing the first verse of "Away in a Manger" before expecting money on demand and then giving Christmas abuse when you don't give it to them. Nope, this was a local group who even had their own dodgy tape recording of "Now that's what I call Carols 2006".

However genuine they may have been I was able to escape the house before they banged on the front door but my landlord had to play famous Hallowe'en game of "Let's pretend I'm not in!" It's nice in some respects to witness a genuine carol singer again. In these diversity barmy times having someone singing Christian rhyme at the door is unusual. I wonder if someone called the police and reported them for a racially aggravated section 5 public order offence?

Had to go into work today. It was my day off but as part of my probation I have to fill in this huge file containing "National Occupational Standards" to demonstrate I can do my role as a police officer. To put it mildly, the whole thing is a load of tosh. Each standard is normally based on something you would need to do as a police officer, but the trouble is you then have to justify every action and take into account the person's human rights and diversity. For example, one standard is dealing with a confrontational situation and so the scenario would go something like this:

• Describe the event: "In order to stop my head being kicked in I had to use my pava spray, ASP and handcuffs to subdue the subject who had told me he was going to rip my head off and spit down my throat."
• Were your actions justified?: "Yes. In order to stop my head being kicked in I had to undertake this procedure and I for one did not want my head ripped off and someone else's spittal projected down my throat into the last breath contained in my lungs."
• Did you respect the other person's diversity, taking into account customs, beliefs, religion and human rights?: "Are you having a laugh?"

Etc., etc., etc.

You then have to get these standards signed off by a witness who was present at the time of your actions. Hmmmm, that almost assumes that if you work as an individual you are either likely to lie or such situations do not occur. However, I have to do them so that I can achieve the high status of Sheriff, or at least a fully fledged member of the police farce. As I understand it, the procedure is that you fill in these things, they are checked over by your training unit and the file along with you are presented to a superintendent or higher who then completely ignores them and says well done before giving you an overview of their own career etc. I suppose the main up shot is that you get a pay rise at the end of it.

Update. Gerald is still talking to me and is claiming that she's having problems with her long distance partner Arnold. Still don't quite know what to do but at least I am a bit happier now and not as suicidal as my last blog suggested. Incidentally, it proves that nobody reads this as I didn't receive any support from the Samaritans!

Roll on Easter.

Bah bloody humbug!

Hmmmm, depression, you've either got it or you ain't and I know for sure I have it at the moment. It's been three years since my wife and I decided to split up and I look back over this period of time and think to myself "What the f*** have you done with your life since!"

Okay, I've completely changed career and in a sad/sadistic way I enjoy my new job. Well I say sadistic in a light hearted sense, I really do not enjoy seeing dead people!?!?! However, there's something still missing in my life and quite frankly I am feeling very alone.

I blame an instructor from my local gym who asked me a question a couple of weeks ago "Do you enjoy being alone?" I had never thought about my situation in those terms before and now it's all I can focus on. The obvious answer is of course "NO" but it's the way of dealing with the problem that is the most depressing fact. I do not rank myself as being one of mankind's Adonis types with charisma and sex appeal that makes women fall at my feet. Okay, I had a boost back in August when a lovely younger lady said I was an attractive bloke and spent the night with me, but I can't help but think it was the beer goggles/translator that night that influenced her opinion.

The instructor at the gym herself went on to say that she didn't enjoy being alone when she had split up with her partner, but bearing in mind she almost resembles the "fallen Madonna with the big boobies" I doubt she was alone for too long. False boobs, I can spot them a mile off. There was/is an amusing site on the web somewhere that has a test to spot which of the breasts presented to you are fake or real. I scored 100% on this so I'm not sure what that makes me.

Anywho, back to my depression. I fancy the pants off this woman from the gym, to protect the innocent I will call her Gerald. Gerald's got a partner who lives in another country and their relationship may be on slightly shakey grounds. Going by my own standards Gerald is far too good for me, she is a good friend, but it still doesn't stop me having feelings for her. I am now left with a quandry. Do I let her know how I feel and possibly bugger up our friendship or do I just keep quiet and continue to follow the path of depression or become a modern day recluse? Any answers, assuming anybody reads this junk, will be much appreciated. Either way it has pushed me into a state that I haven't felt for a long time.

I'm not a nasty person, despite the job, I could be caring but I just don't believe I've had the chance in a long time. Another EXTREMELY close friend of old told me that I don't know how to open up to people. Hmmm, to a certain degree she has a point but I could not open up to her as, well, our relationship was complicated.

People say I am pessimistic, they've probably got a point but I wonder how much of that is down to general depression as a whole. Other people wonder why I sympathise with people who commit suicide. It's simple, I've been there, tried that and got the t-shirt. The common expression is "People who commit suicide are only thinking about themselves and don't think about other people". Yup, you're right and unless you've been there yourself you just can't understand. The impression you get is that nobody would care whether you are alive or not and you certainly do not consider the consequences of someone finding your body be it a few hours later or a number of weeks later when it resembles soup!?!?! Incidentally I tried to commit suicide three times but as I was young I only did a half arsed job so here I am. Don't tell my parents as they didn't believe me when I originally told them back then. Now I've grown up they might be devastated!

My God, this is a depressing blog tonight, sorry about that, but I guess it's the only way I can get things out of my system. Write them down on an electronic format that nobody reads! Well at least on this particular site.

Anyway, moving swiftly on. Had the weekend off and was in my local policing town tonight. Hmm, there were a number of ambulances running about, seems I may have made a good decision to have the time off. Feel slightly guilty though.

Christmas, glad I'm working (volunteered of course), bah bloody humbug!

Favourite Christmas record lyrics "They said there'd be snow at Christmas. They said there'd be peace on earth, but instead it just kept on raining, etc. . . . the Christmas we get we deserve!"

Will update before the festive season really begins, hopefully, but if I don't have good one yourselves!!!!

Soooo long since my last post and I'm still alive and kicking in this world. Having left my last job, yippee, I now have the unenviable task of being one of Thatcher's bully boys aka a police officer. It's an interesting job to say the least and you get to meet all kinds of interesting people. You know: drunk people; drugged people; smelly people; abusive people; violent people; nutty people; and my favourite, dead people (although the conversation isn't so hot with this ethnic group). Not the worst choice I have made but I am glad to say that after the necessary training I am beginning to adopt the well polished cynical attitude towards the general public.

Christmas time, mistletoe and wine

Christmas has always been a disappointment for me but I do hold values regarding its existence. One of these values is that Christmas decorations should NOT be put up until the 21st December at the earliest. It amazes me that in a number of houses I had the misfortune to enter back in November, how many of them already had a Christmas tree in their living room. They certainly all had more decorations than I could dream to own on my salary. I suppose this is also on top of the amount they are given by the government for smoking and drinking. Perhaps there is a Christmas grant I haven't heard about but as I am gainfully employed it is unlikely that I will be able to partake in this handout. It's not very often that you enter these houses on a good note, normally it's after one of the involved parties has decided to smash something with their new baseball bat, that was probably wrapped up under the tree, before scarpering. The remaining party normally gives a tearful account of the events through a plume of smoke before stating that she doesn't want anything done about it as "I LOVE HIM" and that he's not all bad and it was just a disagreement.

Abuse between partners and ex-partners is a regular part of the role performed by an officer on the beat and in uniform. I think it's fair to say that the majority of it is complete pony and it's just one half trying to get at the other. A fine example I had was with a woman who claimed that she had split up with her partner and he had "stolen the bed" from her flat. After much digging around the truth is that the partner had been told to take the bed awat as she didn't want it anymore and it was cluttering up her taxpayer's paid for flat. She also stated that this partner had been abusive to her on numerous occasions on the phone. When I enquired as to whether or not the partner had been harassing her by telephone she revealed that the abuse had come when she had constantly phoned him! For the benefit of the incident log the text "words of advice were given" has been entered. In other words I suggested that she stopped phoning him and the abuse would stop and I was amazed at how unsarcastic I was when I gave the suggestion to her.

Drunk People

Why oh why oh why do drunken people always want to shake you by the hand when you're in uniform. They always seem to have forgotten that: a) they've been spending the night going to the toilet and not washing their hands; b) chances are they've just had a chunder in the gutter before they find my colleagues or I standing behind them; and c) they have just devoured the most greasy kebab in town. I for one find the latter part extremely offensive as I am a vegetarian and the general public never seems to respect my diversity on that quarter. My colleagues do not like the fact that I engage in conversation with some of these people but it's always good for public spirit and invariably you are told about what a good job the police do and how appreciated it is that we are on the beat. It's the only praise you normally get in the job so it's worth savouring it.

Of course, there is the other end of the spectrum where certain brands of alcopops send people's brains in to self destruct and/or destroy mode. I enjoy a drink, I have been known to get drunk, but I have never got to such a state that I have the urge to either punch someone or smash a window. Copious amounts of my favourite brand of lager are more likely to put me in a coma or at worse make me dance. I have seen a large number of people wandering around the town centre on a Friday or Saturday night and each time the song "I predict a riot" comes creeping into my head. The words of the first verse are "Watching the people get larey, not very pretty I tell 'e. Walking through town is quite scarey and not very sensible either." It then goes onto mention about a friend of a friend being beaten as he looked at the wrong way at a policeman. Well I've not seen it happen and as most people's eyes can't focus on the footpath in front of them after club kick out time I ask the question "How do you look the wrong way?" Besides which the only force I used is "home office approved" and comes under the legislation of sections 117 of PACE and section 3 of the Criminal Law Act(?)

One chap I arrested for drunk and disorderly a couple of months back was hit by a car that he inadvertently stagged out in front of. I saw him a couple of hours later and asked of his welfare after the accident. His slurred response was "OH F**K ME MATE. I'VE NEVER BEEN KNOCKED OUT LIKE THAT BEFORE." This just goes to show that a fight between homo sapien (although this can be hard to recognise) and Audi A6 has a clear cut outcome. This chap was one of those people who on his arrest pleaded that he wasn't "PISSED" and that "YOU HAVE MADE A TERRIBLE MISTAKE OFFICER FOR WHICH YOU WILL PAY DEARLY" or at least words to that effect.

Motorists

I am still a mere probationer but one of my goals in this job is to become the unclean of the service and join the traffice department. Why? Well firstly I have a healthy hate for other road users and secondly there are so many morons out and about that really need to be brought back to earth with a bump. A fine example: Fatal crash occurs on main A road, roundabout slip road is blocked by me - not a small chap wearing a hi-visibility coat, a police car with flashing blue lights, numerous cones laid out in a home office approved way, and two police accident signs. Drivers still stopped on the roundabout and asked "IS THE ROAD CLOSED?" It was all I could do to not explain to them that it was merely a hobby of mine designed to cause as much inconvenience as possible. One person complained bitterly that as a result of this man dying it would add an additional ten minutes to his journey. Well sorry for the inconvenience, if you're planning on having a fatal road traffic crash (RTC) make sure you do it in a more convenient location please. The plebs who stopped on the roundabout completely failed to see the danger of oncoming traffic, in particular the large volume of juggernauts associated with this area due to it's proximity to a major port, and also fail to look in their rear view mirrors before slamming on their anchors. Of the ones that didn't talk they had this startled rabbit look about them, I'm sure in fact their bottom lips were quivering like a child who's been told that the sweet jar is not for consumption.

Of course, if it wasn't for my appreciation of verbal abuse at events like these, there is no way I would do this job. Watch this space!