Dc Horton hears a who?

It has been the hot topic among the bloggers recently- a Times journalist took it upon himself to out the Nightjack blogger.

Motivations for this remain unclear. The most simple being envy- Dc Horton winning prizes for political writing, having half a million views on some of his posts; the journalistic challenge of finding out who it was; a sense of injustice of how posts about actual cases and therefore the suffering of others was bringing unjust reward. Who knows. I've had enough of searching through the website to try and find out why it was felt of sufficient merit to warrant the expense of going to the High Court. (Having said that, it appears it was an effort to establish that he really was a police officer and not someone faking it, according to their chief leader writer, although that doesn't answer the question of once they found out he was genuine, why they felt it necessary to go through to the High Court to fight for the right to name him)

What is clear is the spectacular backlash at their efforts- link here. This shouldn't come as any surprise to Mr Foster, as his own colleagues would have been able to tell him. I ought to make it clear I don't advocate any kind of harassment campaign though, as meeting one apparent injustice with another doesn't help anyone.


This ruling by the court has prompted the pre-emptive shutting of other blogger sites- Plastic Fuzz feels it necessary to shut up shop, and it would appear to be permanently this time. I sadly think it is a matter of time before Inspector Gadget finds himself unwillingly named.

It inevitably leads me to think, once again, why am I doing this. I think by blogging standards I'm (deliberately) quite tame, and as a result I don't attract the readership levels of Gadget, Nightjack et al, but by the same standard I don't think I particularly want to. I generally use this as an outlet to vent frustrations about what I read in the papers.

I usually stop myself posting about jobs I've been to, as I regard blogging is a bit like what someone once told me about batting in cricket- you will eventually, one day, be out(ed). (although in actual cricket, I would be measuring this in minutes, not hours!) I am therefore just a touch paranoid about what I write. I've a way to go to retirement and something like this showing up on my discipline record is not a good career move.

I usually take care not to mention other officers, even senior ones, by name. Politicians are excepted. I have no issue in lambasting politicians. I'm not allowed to join political parties and probably just as well- I make no attempt to hide the fact I distrust most of them.

I might actually post in full the guidelines I set myself another day. But for now, the rain has stopped and despite my back garden being barely big enough to pitch a tent in there's always a hundred things to do in it....