I deserve my pay.

I try not to get political on here. But sometimes it's unavoidable. The government want's you to beleive that the polcie are overpaid, that the pension that we contribute 11% of our earnings to i sundeserved, and that various perks we get are unjustified. This is as opposed to the free pensions that they get, with expenses they are paid which have been subject of recent media attention including such things as clea ing their swimming ppols and rebuilidng their patios in the second homes they claim they need, even though with modern technology there is no need for them to have a second home in London, they could video conference from their home constituences - but I digress.
The police are overpaid they argue. i have to agree that some police officers are. I have many colleagues who work daylight hours, and 9 to 5 office jobs Monday to Friday and earn exactly the same as I do. Their wives can also work those same hours, adn still maintain some degree of normal family life. But, consider this: I work variale shifts and often don't know from one ay topt he next what I will be working next week. I work a variation oif late, early, night and haklf night shifts. Sometimes I work a late early, starng at 9 a.m. until 5 p.m or 7 p.m but I won;t know until maybe the day before. So how exactly does my wife find a job that works around those hours, and still manange to arrange childcare at such short notice? The answer is she can't, so she is effectively a stay at home mum, and my salary is the sole income for the family. So whilst on the face of it a police officer salary may seem high, it is a sole income for a family.
Now consider the restrictions such a job places on your lifestyle. This is a typical week. I have just work 9 days solid without a day off. (This contravenes European working directives, but I had no choice in it) I finished a nightshift at 7 a.m. this morning. At 11 a.m,. this morning I took a call from the duties officer requiring me to come back on duty at 5 a,m tommorow - a return to duty at last than 22 hours notice. Any normal person would have been in bed asleep, but I had done a bit of shopping at 7 am then mown the lawn and done a bit of gardening before considering going to bed. I think I have had a sandwhich to eat today. But I'm not that sure, that could have been yesterday. That is the reality of a coppers day. I am going to bed now, knowing I have to be up at 4 am tommorow, and knowing that Wednesday will be exactly the same, because of an ongoing Industrial dispute locally I am rostered to work again on my day off . This will mean I have had one day off in sixteen days working, and that one day off was after a night shift, so the bulk of it was spent in bed catching up on sleep before a 4 a.m start the next day. Even better, I have been at least half an hour late off on every shift i have worked thsi week, and due to the regualtiosn we work under the first half hour of overtime is unpaid, so I have effectivly put in 3 and a half hours unpaid overtime or in real terms half a days work for free in the last week. Would any other industry allow or permit this? I doubt it!
So I really beleive I deserve my pay, and when the government starts to attck out pay and conditions, please remember the above. A British beat bobby has a unique postition: we are not employed, we are appointed: we cannot strike, we are there 24/7/365. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, who do you turn to? And who else is expected and prepared to lay down his or her life to protect help and defend society, democracy and do the right thing? Regardless of your experiences with the police, you have to agree that we have the best in the world, policng by consent, unarmed on the whole, with some of the bravest and most proffesional officers in the world. We deserve our pay. Don't let this government tell you otherwise.

Are ASDA taking the piss or what?

I fully support ASDA in their efforts to thwart underage drinkers. I applaud their challenge 21 policy, whereby anyone under 21, or who appears to be under 21, has to provide proof of their identity and age. And I know that I've been working out more recently and eating more healthily. But because I'm a real man in the Gene Hunt mould I refuse to moisturise, and rarely use "grooming products." A splash of aftershave and a smear of Brylcream is all I've ever needed, and to be honest, with a number 2 crewcut the Brylcream is only necessary because my hair goes very dry and fluffy otherwise, giving me the appearance of a velcro tennis ball. I do not subscribe to the Cliff Richard Fountain of Youth by abstaining from lifes pleaures, and I'd be the first to agree that I have the perfect face for Radio.
So, how I wonder did the checkout operator conclude that I was under 21? I'm 42 for Christ (or God(s) of your choice) sake. I can pass the requirement twice over. Talk about should have gone to specsavers!
I haven't been asked for ID in over twenty years. I don't really carry ID. I mean I had my police warrant card with me, but that isn't acceptable because it doesn't have your date of birth on it. You have to be 18 1/2 to join the force, but that doesn't prove you can buy a bottle of wine. Rummaging through my wallet I had all sorts of things that give away my age - a Library ticket, Institute of Advanced Motorists membership card and Caravan Club member card - but none show my date of birth. It was only when my son, 8 year old Thomas, asked "what's the problem Dad?" that the operator relented. Obviously she'd done a little mental arithmatic and figured that I must be at least 24 to have an 8 year old son in tow.
So here's a top tip for all you council house chavs out there - take your kid brother shopping with you when you buy your Stella. - hang on, no scratch that, you probably DO have an eight year old son but are still under age to buy alcohol right?

Boys and their toys

One day I will have to get a proper job. I am resigned to this. After all, I am rapidly approaching compulsory retirement age for police officers, and I can't thin of any other job that will be as much fun. Because being a copper isn;t a job at all. It's a continuation of the game of cops and robbers I used to play as a kid. It's a real life X box and Ninetendo. We get to carry guns and drive fast cars. We are James Bond, The A Team and The Saint all rolled into one. It's one rollercoaster ride of fun fun fun. Well, okay it's not all fun, there is death and danger to deal with, but it's not real. Well, actually yes it is real, but as a defence mechanism to cope with that you pretend it's not.
But just occasionally something comes along that helps you suspend reality and reinforce that James Bond feeling. This happened today when a new Skoda Octavia VRS arrived at the department. Forget the jokes about Skodas, they are now seriously cool cars, and the VRS is a rocket propelled roller skate with the grip of a go kart and handling liek a thing that handles really really well. (I'll come back and edit that bit when I can think of what it is that it handles like, but for now just take it as read that it is bloody good) now our old Skoda has all the buttons for the blue lights and sirens hidden in the flap that would normally conceal the ash tray just ahead of the gear stick in the centre console. How cool is that? Very James Bond Thank Q.
Well not as cool as the new one, which has them all in the centre roof console, all little illuminated square push buttons and toggle switches, so it's like an aircraft. Now as a basic flat foot, a kid from a council house estate with an O level in Maths and another in Art I am ideally qualified to do Painting by numbers, but could never aspire to flying anything other than a paper dart. So this opens up a whole new world of play for me. The M62 becomes a runway, and with the phonetic alphabet already in use I only have to adopt my best Roger moore voice and I'm there in my private jet with pussy galore. All i need now are the revolving number plates and some machine guns.

Hello fans

It seems that Iam developing a bit of a cult following.
One of my workmates told me the other day I was a cult. At least I think thats what he said. I may have misheard.
The thing is, I have no way of knowing, beacuse nobody has ever commented on my blogs (I discount my Japanese/Chinese stalker on the grounds that I have no idea what he or she was trying to say) Yet I seem to have attracted advertising which suggests that someone must be reading this.
So, please, if you are reading this shit please let me know. If I am wasting my time, that's fine; It's my time to waste. But if I have a following then perhaps I ought to know. That way I can offend and insult more people.

How are you?

How are you? It would seem to be a pretty harmless question, and in Britain it is. I don't know how people respond in other countries but in the UK the standard response is, "Fine" or "okay" followed by "how are you?"
The thing you have to understand is that this is simply polite conversation, the opening perhaps to a longer conversation about something else. It is a means to get talking. The one thing the enquirer does not want to know is how you are. So, if you have a bad cold, genital warts, or your arm has fallen off, the last thing he or she wants to hear, is the details. You simply reply, "okay."
At worst you might venture a "Mustn't grumble."
It occurs to me however, that we have this whole pretend concern thing arse about face. The last person to give an unbiased health assessment about yourself is yourself. Most medical conditions which don't hospitalise you come on gradually, so you adapt to them over a period of time, rather like the clutch wearing out on your car - you just get used to it. Or if ti came on quickly you wake up in hospital with a man in a white coat gravely explaining how long you have left.
So given that you have had several months to get used to things, you are hardly in a position to be subjective.
What you should do when meeting a friend or acquaintance for the first time in ages, is to give them an appraisal of how you percive their own helath to be and then ask them to comment on your own health. Hence, "You're looking well. How am I?" If the reply is less than enthuiastic you then know you've either let your self go a bit, you have a hangover or you are about to die from some horrible disease. The important thing is of course that you get an independant appraisal from someone else. Far better than looking in a mirror. And it would also let you know who your real friends are, because those who care about you will hopefully be honest, while those with no interest, vested or otherwise, would simply relpy "you're looking fine." Or more likely "What the fuck are you on about you mentalist?" This was the reaction when I tried this unorthodox tactic recently.
But now you know the reasoning you will hopefully understand when I next see you. How am I?

Does the world need instructions?

By this I mean in general, do we need instructions, rather thana manual for the planet, although that wouldn't be such a bad idea.





I accept that complicated electronic gadgets need an instruction book, so that women can use them. Men instinctlively know how to operate the basic features on such things and don't read the manual thus missing out on many of the features the gadget might have and which they paid over the odds for rather than buying the cheaper model whcih does all the things they demand of it. Children of course can do everything without the manual.

I am prepared to accept that some things, like complicated flat pack furniture, need an asembly manual. Written in Swedish usually, but they do need one. But not a table. I have just bought a new dining suite, which came with assembly instructions for the table. It is essentially a flat bit of quite wide wood to which four legs are screwed. How hard can that be? The legs are identical, there are four of them, each held by two screws (well bolts technically) with a flat washer and a spring washer for each. Who could possibly get that wrong? Yet it comes with a four page instruction manual. And this includes the phrase "Please now turn the table 180 degrees and place on all four legs in your desired location." No shit! And I was going to leave it upside down in the wrong place. If this dining set was intended for some third world country that had never seen a chair or table before I could understand it. But it's written in English, of sorts, and looks as though it was intended for the developed world.






If that wasn't bad enough the chairs also came with a four page manual a page of which is reproduced here, for entertainment value. I refer to picture b: which gives a pictoral demonstration of how to sit on a chair, just in case you are from a culture which has not yet had the luxury of something to sit on. I also like the instruction at d: "Highly recommend to re-tighten all the bolts again after using the chair for seven days." Now this is ambiguous. Does that mean seven days continuous use? Do I have to sleep on the chair? I would consider myself a light user of the dining room furniture, I often skip breakfast and have TV lunches, and if I'm on night shift I might not eat a meal at home at all. So, can I leave it 14 days or longer before I have to tighten the bolts? And would a more regular user have to tighten them sooner. It also occurs to me that as a family of four we are at a disadvantage with six chairs to bed in. Two of them will not be used in the first seven days unless we rotate the chairs around the table. So the 7 days could be as long as a month. Can I not just check and tighten them at my own discretion?


The final words of the instruction booklet are perhaps the most amusing. "If you need help or have damaged or missing parts call the customer helpline....."Well after being treat like a simpleton, yes, mny pride and sense of well being are damaged, my dignity is missing and I need help because my brain has tried to escape through my ear canal as a result of my intelligence being insulted.

Student demontrations - I don't get it.

As a kid if I wanted more pocket money off my Dad I sucked up to him, behaved myself and did extra chores around the house. That is how capitalism works. You are rewarded for doing good.
So, why, if the students want something from the Government do they think that behaving like hooligans and smashing up public buildings that I, a taxpayer, will have to pay to be repaired, will get them what they want? They don't pay taxes as students, so it doesn't affect them. Well it will now, because the governments pockets are empty, so they will either spend money on repairing the treasury or buy more grit to treat the roads but not both. It is not possible to get a quart out of a litre pot.
Of course I doubt that the students themselves are responsible for the damage to the Treasury or Prince Charles limo, that would be down to "Rent-a-mob" the anarchist faction that arrive at all demos seeking to have a poke at authority and "the system." These are the same people who have ruined the game of kick the ball, and who caused the violence at Poll Tax protests, fuel protests and the G8 summit, and who are ban the bomb, anti-everything just to further their own ends. In fact had the protest march been arranged for the morning it is unlikely anyone would have turned up at all. The Students would still be in bed and the violent protest professionals would have been there on their own, and would not have acted, because there are only a small minority of them who usually start the trouble then melt into the background and let some schmuck take the fall for them. The same thing can be seen on a smaller scale at every pub fight.
But lets get to the bones of this protest - students are protesting because the Government has voted to increase tuition fees. Okay, I agree this is wrong. The universities should set their own fees and let market forces dictate the price. The better the university, the better the quality of tuition and the better your chances of success. Therefore Oxbridge could charge £10,000 per year and Hull would charge £3.50. Why the students think they have a right to "free" education is beyond me. They are academicals who want to study and will go on to very well paid careers, or in some cases will get a non-degree in some obscure subject and will go on to a successful management career in McDonalds. Good luck to them. But the less gifted in society get no such subsidised education to help in their chosen career. A Heavy Goods driver for example; he will spend perhaps £3000 to £6000 of his own money in fees to pass his driving test. Does the government interfere in the costs of this tuition, or provide grants or loans to assist in his vocational aspirations? No, and rightly so.
Why the big emphasis on a University education anyway? Look at how many do inappropriate degrees and then struggle to gain employment thereafter. All their degree shows is that they have a capacity to learn. In the same way a sponge has the capacity to soak up water. I would not employ a damp sponge.
My father, a driving instructor once had a highly educated engineering student who could explain in great detail how a clutch worked, he would discuss at length the torque forces involved in transmitting the rotational power of the reciprocating cylinder engine via the gearbox to the drive axle, and could detail the metallurgy of the various components in the drive train, what heat and sound losses were involved and how inefficient the whole system was - but he could not change gear. In short he could talk the talk but couldn't walk the walk. This is often typical of those with "higher" education. Those of uneducated blokes like what I is, go straight from school to doing a job, learning on the job and have the hands on ability to progress much further, but are thwarted by the system which appoints those with degrees and no clue of reality into management posts above us, making decisions which affect the running of companies and organisations without ever having done the job themselves. I include Government in that observation. It would be better to close all the universities and let the doers do, and the thinkers think, or at least think they are thinking.
Ah, but it's not fair that the rich can afford education, and the poor can't, bleat the bleeding heart socialists. Yes, you're right it's not. Life isn't fair. Get used to it and move on. The idea that we are all born equal is bullshit. Some are born into privileged and monied backgrounds and get a bald head and a weak chin but a fleet of Mercedes to help them pull women, whilst all I got was a sense of humour and a pot belly. Some will inherit a huge estate in the country, in my case that would be my dads ageing Volvo, abandoned in the snow in rural North Yorkshire.
And so to the rights to protest. The students of course have the right to lawful protest. Prince Charles has the right to freedom of movement and to drive through London in his Limo to visit the Theatre. The two should be compatible. Right to protest does not include the rights to infringe on others rights. Trespass and burglary of the treasury, criminal damage and obstruction of the highway are all unlawful acts. The reports that Charles car was driven through the protesters is ridiculous - the protesters shouldn't have been on the road - they were acting illegally in obstructing the highway.
Perhaps the students should study (although many won't understand that word) the footage of the demonstration held by Police Officers in 2008 against the pay cuts they faced. This was a truly democratic protest, a silent march, no slogans, no shouting, no violence and no arrests made, despite some hostile photographers trying to provoke a reaction by ramming cameras literally inches from officers faces.
So returning to my opening analogy, I wanted more pocket money but I have now behaved badly, broken a window and upset close friends of my dad. Will I get what I wanted - more pocket money? I doubt it. And I doubt the students will achieve their aims.