One of the curious aspects of modern life is how the police are no longer revered by those who used to be their staunchest supporters.
This brilliantly-written email to Devon and Cornwall police starkly illustrates the frustrations felt by people who, 20 years ago, would have backed the police without question.
You must read it all the way through. Next time I’ll bring you the reply the writer got from the community beat officer, and what he then said to the bobby.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Sir/Madam/Automated Telephone Answering Service,
Having spent the past 20 minutes waiting for someone at Bodmin Police Station to pick up a telephone, I have decided to abandon the idea and try emailing you instead.
Perhaps you would be so kind as to pass this message on to your colleagues in Bodmin by means of smoke signal, carrier pigeon or a ouija board.
As I am writing this email, there are 11 failed medical experiments (I think you will call them “youths”) in St Mary’s Crescent, which is just off St Mary’s Road in Bodmin.
Six of them seem happy enough to play a game which involves kicking a football against an iron gate with the force of a meteorite.
This causes an earth-shattering CLANG! which rings throughout the entire building.
The game is now in its third week and I am unsure how the scoring system works, and have no idea if it will end any time soon.
The remaining five failed abortions are happily rummaging through several bags of rubbish and items of furniture that someone has so thoughtfully dumped beside the wheelie bins.
One of them has found a saw and is setting about a discarded chair like a beaver on ecstasy pills.
I fear that it is only a matter of time before they turn their limited attention to the caravan gas bottle that is lying on its side between the two bins.
If they could be relied on to only blow their own arms and legs off then I would happily leave them to it. I would even go as far as to lend them the matches.
Unfortunately, they are more likely to blow up half the street with them and I’ve just finished decorating the kitchen.
What I suggest is this – after replying to this email with worthless assurances that the matter is being looked into and will be dealt with, why not leave it until the one night of the year (probably bath night) when there are no mutants around, then drive up the street in a panda car before doing a three-point turn and disappearing again.
This will, of course, serve no other purpose than to remind us what policemen actually look like.
I trust that when I take a clawhammer to the skull of one of these throwbacks, you’ll do me the same courtesy of giving me a four-month head start before coming to arrest me.
I remain your obedient servant.
Sunday 21 September 2008
Sunday 14 September 2008
Scam alert!!!!!!
It's been a while since i had any real crap in my main email box.
But today I haven't been let down, this afternoon I checked my mail and I found this.....
But after that I found this polite note from that nice Mr Song Li
Good Day ,
My name is Mr. Song Li. I work with the Hang Seng Bank. There is
a sum of $19,500,000.00 in my bank Hang Seng Bank", Hong Kong.
There were no beneficiaries stated concerning these funds which
means no one would ever come to claim it. That is why I ask that
we work together.
I do solicit for your assistance in effecting this transaction.
I intend to give 30% of the total funds as compensation for your
assistance. I will notify you on the full transaction on
receipt of your response if interested, and I shall send you the
details and necessary procedures with which to make the transfer.
E-mail;mrsong_li_01@yahoo.com.hk
Should you be interested? Please send me your:
1. Full names
2. Private phone number
3. Current residential address
Kind Regards,
Mr. Song Li.
Well that sounds like the offer of a life time doesn't it gentle reader?
How far did you read through before you guessed this is a scam?
I just googled Song Li and Hang Seng Bank and I got a return of 218,000 hits. Looks like Mr Song Li has been a busy boy.
Do people really fall for this rubbish? And if they do should they even be allowed to use a computer unsupervised anyway?
But today I haven't been let down, this afternoon I checked my mail and I found this.....
But after that I found this polite note from that nice Mr Song Li
Good Day ,
My name is Mr. Song Li. I work with the Hang Seng Bank. There is
a sum of $19,500,000.00 in my bank Hang Seng Bank", Hong Kong.
There were no beneficiaries stated concerning these funds which
means no one would ever come to claim it. That is why I ask that
we work together.
I do solicit for your assistance in effecting this transaction.
I intend to give 30% of the total funds as compensation for your
assistance. I will notify you on the full transaction on
receipt of your response if interested, and I shall send you the
details and necessary procedures with which to make the transfer.
E-mail;mrsong_li_01@yahoo.com.hk
Should you be interested? Please send me your:
1. Full names
2. Private phone number
3. Current residential address
Kind Regards,
Mr. Song Li.
Well that sounds like the offer of a life time doesn't it gentle reader?
How far did you read through before you guessed this is a scam?
I just googled Song Li and Hang Seng Bank and I got a return of 218,000 hits. Looks like Mr Song Li has been a busy boy.
Do people really fall for this rubbish? And if they do should they even be allowed to use a computer unsupervised anyway?
Thursday 11 September 2008
Sarah Palin
Frank Sinatra would have got the joke. In the words of the great political philosopher, they all laughed at Christopher Columbus when he said the world was round.
They're all laughing, too, at John McCain for choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate. The usual suspects took one look at this pistol-packin' momma and reacted like John McEnroe to a disputed line call: you cannot be serious!
Certainly, the pick came, as the Americans say, out of left field. But Sarah Palin is centre stage now, and suddenly it's game on.
At the very least, McCain has got a wonderful sense of mischief - a quality sadly lacking in most politicians.
The way the Left, both here and in America, are contorting themselves is a joy to behold. Sarah Palin is every Guardianista's worst nightmare.
It's reminiscent of how they used to patronise Mrs Thatcher 30 years ago. What did this small-town girl know about anything?
How could any woman expect to run a country and raise a family? What does she know about foreign affairs?
Of course, they weren't saying that a woman couldn't be Prime Minister, you understand. Just not this woman.
Shirley Williams would have been fine, but this ghastly, lower middle- class Snobby Roberts woman from Grantham, of all places - AAARGH!
It's been hilarious watching the sisterhood tie themselves in knots over Sarah Palin.
They've been in full Glenda Slagg mode - dontcha just hate her, dontcha just love her?
On the one hand she's a feisty, capable woman shaking up the political establishment, while juggling a family and career. I don't know how she does it.
But on the other, she's a Godfearing, gun-totin', good ol' girl. She hunts, she fishes - she's a Republican, for goodness' sake.
Sarah Palin is every red-blooded redneck's fantasy figure, every randy schoolboy's Mrs Robinson. She could have stepped straight out of one of long-lost cousin Michael's Ripping Yarns.
Cheerleader, beauty queen, dominatrix of the Harper Valley PTA, mother of five, mayor, governor and now a heartbeat away from the Vice-Presidency.
You couldn't make her up. Law And Order's Fred Thompson, once a presidential candidate himself, hit the baby seal on the head when he said the Left were in a blind panic over what to do about Palin.
What they are doing is what they usually do when confronted with something which offends their world view - character assassination. Every 'liberal' newspaper and TV network has sent hatchet men north to Alaska to dig for the dirt beneath the tundra.
What they discovered is that 80 per cent of Alaskans think she's doing a great job.
A supermarket tabloid is claiming she had an affair, which she denies. Apart from that, the worst the scandal-hounds have come up with is that Palin, as governor, put pressure on a police chief to fire her former brother-in-law.
Given that said brother-in-law had beaten up her sister and threatened to kill her father, I'd say that far from abusing her office, she showed considerable restraint. I'm surprised she didn't put a bullet in his head.
The big talking point is the pregnancy of Palin's 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, who is soon to marry her boyfriend. That's what I call a shotgun wedding.
Still, it kills the wild rumour that Bristol is really the mother of Palin's Down's syndrome baby, Trig.
You've just got to like a woman who calls her son after a character in Only Fools And Horses. Although it's probably fair to assume she doesn't have a working knowledge of Cockney rhyming slang, otherwise her daughter would never have been christened Bristol.
When Palin talks about shattering the glass ceiling, the sisters are supposed to cheer - except most of them suspect her idea of shattering a glass ceiling would be with a both barrels blast from a 12-bore.
She epitomises the 'God and guns' mentality at which Barack Obama and his supporters sneer. They use 'small town' as a pejorative term. That's not how Middle America sees it.
John Mellencamp wrote his hit song Small Town as an ironic take on Hicksville, USA. He even performed it at an Obama rally earlier this year.
But that hasn't stopped Middle Americans adopting it as an anthem. Mellencamp must be just as horrified as Springsteen was when Ronald Reagan purloined his anti-war Born In The USA as a campaign song.
It's not that the Americans don't do irony, as European 'sophisticates' always maintain.
It's just that sometimes, my dear, they don't give a damn. A good song is a good song - and to hell with the message.
Most Americans were born and raised in a small town. Her values are their values.
The mantra from the Obama camp is that she lacks the experience to be VP. In truth, she has more executive experience than either Obama or his Neil Kinnock-impersonator sidekick mate Joe Biden, neither of whom has ever run anything.
But, wail the sceptics, what about foreign affairs? Admittedly, Palin has never slagged off her country at a mass rally in Berlin. But Alaska's next door to Russia. She's got more experience of dealing with Russians than anyone outside of corporate hospitality at Stamford Bridge.
Who is Putin more likely to be wary of - Barack 'we must negotiate with dictators' Obama, or Looby Loo packing heat?
To paraphrase the Duke of Wellington, I don't know what she does to the enemy, but she scares the life out of me.
Palin reminds me of the old joke about what's the difference between the IRA and a woman with PMT? You can negotiate with the IRA.
What she does have in spades is experience of the energy industry - the number one concern right now. Palin would drill, drill and drill some more - polar bears or no polar bears. And when the oil companies got greedy, she imposed a windfall tax. Unlike Gordon Brown, who'd keep it (and today gave in to the energy companies and didn't have the guts to impose a windfall tax), she gave every Alaskan a $1,200 rebate.
With all the hoop-la, it's easy to forget that she's running for Vice-President, not President.
Not yet anyway.
That's what really frightens her condescending opponents. Not that we've a leg to stand on this side of the pond. We've got Harriet Harman a chewed fingernail away from the top job - and she's never shot a moose in her life.
They're all laughing, too, at John McCain for choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate. The usual suspects took one look at this pistol-packin' momma and reacted like John McEnroe to a disputed line call: you cannot be serious!
Certainly, the pick came, as the Americans say, out of left field. But Sarah Palin is centre stage now, and suddenly it's game on.
At the very least, McCain has got a wonderful sense of mischief - a quality sadly lacking in most politicians.
The way the Left, both here and in America, are contorting themselves is a joy to behold. Sarah Palin is every Guardianista's worst nightmare.
It's reminiscent of how they used to patronise Mrs Thatcher 30 years ago. What did this small-town girl know about anything?
How could any woman expect to run a country and raise a family? What does she know about foreign affairs?
Of course, they weren't saying that a woman couldn't be Prime Minister, you understand. Just not this woman.
Shirley Williams would have been fine, but this ghastly, lower middle- class Snobby Roberts woman from Grantham, of all places - AAARGH!
It's been hilarious watching the sisterhood tie themselves in knots over Sarah Palin.
They've been in full Glenda Slagg mode - dontcha just hate her, dontcha just love her?
On the one hand she's a feisty, capable woman shaking up the political establishment, while juggling a family and career. I don't know how she does it.
But on the other, she's a Godfearing, gun-totin', good ol' girl. She hunts, she fishes - she's a Republican, for goodness' sake.
Sarah Palin is every red-blooded redneck's fantasy figure, every randy schoolboy's Mrs Robinson. She could have stepped straight out of one of long-lost cousin Michael's Ripping Yarns.
Cheerleader, beauty queen, dominatrix of the Harper Valley PTA, mother of five, mayor, governor and now a heartbeat away from the Vice-Presidency.
You couldn't make her up. Law And Order's Fred Thompson, once a presidential candidate himself, hit the baby seal on the head when he said the Left were in a blind panic over what to do about Palin.
What they are doing is what they usually do when confronted with something which offends their world view - character assassination. Every 'liberal' newspaper and TV network has sent hatchet men north to Alaska to dig for the dirt beneath the tundra.
What they discovered is that 80 per cent of Alaskans think she's doing a great job.
A supermarket tabloid is claiming she had an affair, which she denies. Apart from that, the worst the scandal-hounds have come up with is that Palin, as governor, put pressure on a police chief to fire her former brother-in-law.
Given that said brother-in-law had beaten up her sister and threatened to kill her father, I'd say that far from abusing her office, she showed considerable restraint. I'm surprised she didn't put a bullet in his head.
The big talking point is the pregnancy of Palin's 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, who is soon to marry her boyfriend. That's what I call a shotgun wedding.
Still, it kills the wild rumour that Bristol is really the mother of Palin's Down's syndrome baby, Trig.
You've just got to like a woman who calls her son after a character in Only Fools And Horses. Although it's probably fair to assume she doesn't have a working knowledge of Cockney rhyming slang, otherwise her daughter would never have been christened Bristol.
When Palin talks about shattering the glass ceiling, the sisters are supposed to cheer - except most of them suspect her idea of shattering a glass ceiling would be with a both barrels blast from a 12-bore.
She epitomises the 'God and guns' mentality at which Barack Obama and his supporters sneer. They use 'small town' as a pejorative term. That's not how Middle America sees it.
John Mellencamp wrote his hit song Small Town as an ironic take on Hicksville, USA. He even performed it at an Obama rally earlier this year.
But that hasn't stopped Middle Americans adopting it as an anthem. Mellencamp must be just as horrified as Springsteen was when Ronald Reagan purloined his anti-war Born In The USA as a campaign song.
It's not that the Americans don't do irony, as European 'sophisticates' always maintain.
It's just that sometimes, my dear, they don't give a damn. A good song is a good song - and to hell with the message.
Most Americans were born and raised in a small town. Her values are their values.
The mantra from the Obama camp is that she lacks the experience to be VP. In truth, she has more executive experience than either Obama or his Neil Kinnock-impersonator sidekick mate Joe Biden, neither of whom has ever run anything.
But, wail the sceptics, what about foreign affairs? Admittedly, Palin has never slagged off her country at a mass rally in Berlin. But Alaska's next door to Russia. She's got more experience of dealing with Russians than anyone outside of corporate hospitality at Stamford Bridge.
Who is Putin more likely to be wary of - Barack 'we must negotiate with dictators' Obama, or Looby Loo packing heat?
To paraphrase the Duke of Wellington, I don't know what she does to the enemy, but she scares the life out of me.
Palin reminds me of the old joke about what's the difference between the IRA and a woman with PMT? You can negotiate with the IRA.
What she does have in spades is experience of the energy industry - the number one concern right now. Palin would drill, drill and drill some more - polar bears or no polar bears. And when the oil companies got greedy, she imposed a windfall tax. Unlike Gordon Brown, who'd keep it (and today gave in to the energy companies and didn't have the guts to impose a windfall tax), she gave every Alaskan a $1,200 rebate.
With all the hoop-la, it's easy to forget that she's running for Vice-President, not President.
Not yet anyway.
That's what really frightens her condescending opponents. Not that we've a leg to stand on this side of the pond. We've got Harriet Harman a chewed fingernail away from the top job - and she's never shot a moose in her life.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)