Career Disambition

Happened to be up at big chief HQ the other day during normal (for the rest of the world) hours, and happened to stumble upon the big chief himself coming out of a meeting.

To be fair, especially after recent events (which I can't post about) I think our chief is actually a decent person. However, what struck me was his staff officer. Immaculately ironed and creased shirt, shiny scuffless shoes (mine are all beaten up after being over too many walls, being out in the rain far too often etc etc- although I still do polish them every so often!), blemish and hole free trousers, and just a little soft round all the edges- but what really got me was the plate of biscuits being held.

"Hold your biscuits sir? Absolutely sir."

He had this curious look about him too- one which at the same time seemed to survey everyone else as less important than them, but also doe-eyed puppy dog whenever Mr Chief was looking that way.

And I just thought someone shoot me if I ever end up like that.

Off topic

I know it's not exactly anything to do with anything anyone's been talking about, but it made me laugh at out loud and sometimes thats just what you need, especially with this wind and rain!

Rotten Egg

Sad story from the home counties. Police Inspector by all accounts has killed his wife, then having secured bail, he goes on to kill his mother in law, then himself.

I don't know why the COURT decided to release Gary Weddell on bail. It is important to realise that it was a judge who released him. He was remanded in custody from the police station. Need to be fair on Herts Police here, they didn't release him on bail because he was in the job, as I can almost hear someone shout already.

The MP needs to sort his facts out- we don't have any say in whether a judge grants bail or not, that issue by that stage lies squarely with the CPS. How unlike an MP to spout off accusations without knowing the full details.

Murder is one of those exemption-to-the-rule type cases with regard to bail- i.e. it is only granted in exceptional cases, and not the other way round. It is like this precisely for the kind of reason that has happened here.

So why the judge decided to allow him free (and who's going to pay the £200k now I wonder) is a decision he has to justify. I wonder if his defence team feel satisfied now.

Who to Choose

For my last post below I've been having a debate with a commenter about how we should prioritise incidents we are called to.

Firstly, my thanks to Michael. I am quite aware that other people have different opinions to things to me and with regard to policing, everyone who pays taxes has, or should have, an opinion on how we go about our work. I do like a bit of good debate- and I don't mean in the Jeremy Clarkson style of "My opinion is worth more than yours, so I'll shout louder until you shut up".

The theme of the debate was deployment of resources to a self harming mental health patient, whom by the nature of his violence required a significant number of police officers, which inevitably meant a number of calls would have gone unanswered. (Note- I don't know if there exactly were any serious or non-serious calls which were unanswered / delayed responding as a result of this job, but the point is if there could have been)

So should we give a lesser priority to those whose needs for the police are self generated as opposed to others who are more genuine victims?

As much as sometimes I might like to think one way or the other yes or no, I don't think we as a police service have the right to prioritise our calls dependent on the social background, mental state or any other factor involved in the personal background of the caller.

This is why I also disagree with the concept of police performance targets. Targets by their very nature mean the paymasters want certain incidents to be dealt with in a certain way in order that this target is achieved.

I myself a firm believer in dealing with incidents on an individual basis on its own merits. You shouldn't have a system where people are criticised for dealing with incidents where the outcome was the most appropriate, but as it was not in accordance with a target the officer is seen to have failed by his superiors.

Back to the original point, if we do start giving higher priority to people who are arguably more deserving of police time then it sets a dangerous precedent. Take this example. Should the boy's family have any less of a service compared to the driver of the car as you could argue it was the boys fault? Of course not.

In summary, police deployment should be prioritised by at its most basic level threat to life, then property, and then all else below that. It shouldn't matter whose life or property is at risk, and if we start changing priorities within that in accordance to who is more likely to satisfy a target, or who is deemed more deserving, then it is a sad day.

On a completely different note- please see the "Police Short Stories" link either here or from the sidebar. The man behind that blog is compiling a book of just that- short police stories- and would love to hear from you.

Abiding memories

What with it being a new year and all I wondered what the lasting memories of 2007 would be for me. There was a couple of nasty car crashes, one involving a decapitation, another with a man being cut in half by a tree- whilst still in his car.

However, sad as it is to say it there'll be more car crashes this year, probably some as gory. I think the following story though will stick out in the memory, as it was a bit more unusual and out of the ordinary.

I originally posted about this back in May. I've changed some bits around, changed grammar and whatnot. But it's still the same story.

Its about the time I met a man called Robert.

Robert has a personality disorder that is determined untreatable and so he is not allowed to stay in hospital despite our frequent cause to S136 him. (S136 Mental Health Act- sectioning someone)

Robert decided the other day to cut his wrists. Now we quite often get calls like this, and get there to find small cuts, not very deep- more scratches, really. Robert was a tad different.

With a stanley knife he had gouged right through his wrist. 3 times. He was sat in his kitchen when we got there with his despairing friend.

I don't think I'll forget the sight of his kitchen. It was a reasonable size, with a white tiled floor. It was about 2am, and a single flourescent tube illuminated the room, making a gentle buzz.

Robert's blood covered every single tile. It was on the sideboards where he had sat. It was dripping down the cupboards. A blood saturated towel was in the middle of the floor. Blood spots were on the wall from when he'd flung his arm about. You wouldn't have thought blood smells, but I tell you it does.

Robert was sat on the sideboard, talking to us quite normally, oblivious to the fact he was sat in a scene straight out of SAW. Robert did not want to go to hospital, despite the fact he was constantly oozing blood and he had already lost at least a pint.

This left us in a bit of a situation. We can't force him to go to hospital. He's committed no offence. We only have powers to section people if they're in a public place. The old trick of arresting them to prevent a breach of the peace, followed by de-arresting them once outside and sectioning them instead isn't an option these days. Its now in fact a breach of force policy. We also have the issue that he doesn't even want to leave the kitchen. Robert is no small man. We're in a kitchen with all manner of weapons close to hand with a blood covered ice rink for a floor. We do not want a fight, but thats what we'll get if we try and put hands on him.

But there's no way we can leave him there. He's still conscious, blood steadily dripping through his hands, telling us it was an accident and he'll get it sorted in the morning.We all know he'll be dead by the morning. The bandage he did let the ambulance service put on he has decided he doesn't want and has torn off.

So, we talk. We patiently build rapport and trust. His friend tries too, but nothing. He just sits on the sideboard, oblivious to the blood everywhere, telling us he's fine. Half an hour of patient persuasion leads nowhere.

All of a sudden, Robert is impatient with us still being there and smashes a cup down onto the floor. The group of armoured PC's who are hiding outside brace, wondering if I'm going to order them all in.

A lone Pc comes in with a shield, and tells Robert not to be so stupid in a manner you would tell off a child, which with all the circumstances seemed mighty surreal. But to my amazement Robert responds, becoming apologetic and saying sorry.

Taking this hint, we continue with the more forceful approach. Myself and the Pc tell him that he's going to hospital right now. Hallelujah, Robert agrees. I quickly signal for everyone outside to quickly hide, knowing if he sees all the armour and shields waiting it'd freak him out. We walk out and go down the several flights of stairs, everyone quietly following. Blood is still flowing down his hands. We are leaving a trail of red, and as we wind down the stairwells, there are spots and spots of blood all over the floors below us before we even get there.

Finally, three floors down Robert goes down in a heap, succumbing to the blood loss. I quickly grab his arm and get the ambulance service to put one, then two and finally three dressings on it. Robert regains consciousness.

Straight away he's fighting us, swinging arms and legs, swearing at us to leave him alone. I'm in a fire exit stairwell of a grey low rise tower block, its 3am, I've got a seriously mentally ill chap spraying blood everywhere who's using his remaining strength to fight us. I do briefly wonder why I do this job.

I don't wonder for long. I've had enough. I nod at a Pc whilst taking a tight hold of Robert's arm and shoulder. The Pc grabs the other side and we march him down the stairs, holding him as he collapses again. He really is a hefty git and we can't carry him, we just wait for him to come round again, stop him fighting us, and march him on again.

Finally, we reach the bottom. He collapses once more as the ambulance driver runs off to get his rig. Once again, once he revives he flails out at us. We can't handcuff him because of his mangled wrist. We're going to have to keep hold of him until he gets sedated. I throw my car keys at someone and we somehow get into the ambulance and are off to the hospital on blues. I stand, holding his wrist up high to stop him hitting me with it and to try and stop him losing yet more blood. The Pc is pinning his other arm. The paramedic is trying do attach monitors, but not getting very far as we're all struggling with him and our balance as the ambulance dodges in and out of traffic.

We get to the hospital and see the open mouthed reaction of the staff when we struggle in with him. We take him down to a cubicle from where he somehow summons more strength from somewhere and 4 of us end up pinning him to the ground. A nurse runs in and puts safety specs on all of us. The doctor doesn't ask a hundred questions of us or the ambulance crew for once, but gets a sedative and administers it. Finally, Robert calms down. He crawls to a mattress on the floor and allows the nurses start cleaning him up. The floor and corridor around us looks like some something out of an abbatoir.

I take the chance to grab some water, grab some air. I take a look at myself.

I am covered in his blood. Boot, trousers, stab vest, shirt. Thoughts of HIV and Hepatitus cross my mind and I go and clean myself up, hoping that little nick on my arm has healed properly. The other skipper is going through all the details with the ambulance and hospital staff.

I feel justified in volunteering someone not covered in his blood to write this all up. I head back to our nick, feeling quite nauseated now by the constant smell of blood from my own clothes.

They were so contaminated I had to return to the hospital later and bin most of my uniform into their hazardous waste bins.

Time to dust off the walking boots

Did someone mention the idea of going on a rally?

A certain someone on the 10th December...

The Federation on the 3rd January! (took them long enough!) Please click the link to see the poster, I laughed out loud when I first saw it. Someone at the fed has a sense of humour after all! I tried to figure out a way of copying and pasting it onto here but I was defeated by my un-technologicalness.

I shall be taking the train down to big smoke central on the 23rd, as I enjoy a happy coincidence of rest days. Does the Met's perk of free public transport around London apply to non-met warrant card holders? Hoping so.


Much as part of me would love this march / rally to not have complied with the various regulations of no protesting without prior notification around parliament, I actually do hope it is all legal.

Whilst I would love to see how the government would cope with such an incident (i.e. it would ram home the point that any amount of legislation they pass is useless if the people who are to enforce it completely ignore it), we can't act illegally for just the same reason.


We would utterly undermine ourselves if we in a deliberately in a very high profile way break the law, for then we would leave ourselves open to fair accusation that we pick and choose which laws to uphold, i.e. only the ones we choose to. Much as I think much government legislation is pointless, I can't decide which ones not to enforce.

Although having said that, our ability to use discretion is one of the most important tools we have else we all would have a lot more points on our licences and there wouldn't be a person left who hadn't been fined! Come on, who hasn't dropped some litter. Or sworn in public.

But a big display of a mass of police officers sticking a finger up at the law in order to stick another up at the government is pushing it, I think.

Views welcome as always.

Another year over

... a new one has begun in depressingly similar circumstances. Get well soon.

Final grim statistic of the year

No sooner had I finished writing that I noticed this on the news!

Some scumbag has shot a Pc in Lancashire. Not going to be a good new year for Pc Katie Johnson, I hope she gets better soon.

I sincerely hope the office dwellers and armchair supervisors don't start going on about breaches of policy for turning up to a firearms incident whilst not a firearms response officer. Unfortunately, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if someone did.

Bit of a slip by the Acting Assistant Chief Constable too:

"It troubles me greatly that at a close confrontation level, someone is shooting not only a police officer but a female one who was clearly identified"

Its the "not only a police officer, but a female one" that caught my eye. Does that mean that it wouldn't have been as serious if it was a male officer shot? Or does he think that as she's a woman she shouldn't have to face such dangerous and naughty people, and it's doubly as tragic when she does?

What will Pc Bloggs think.

In all seriousness though, I hope Pc Johnson recovers without ill effect and the toilet-dweller responsible shoots himself in the groin.

Note- I feel suitably honoured to have been visited by Cuddles, the eponymous idiot commenter with a somewhat limited vocabulary. Normally I'd leave the comments there to allow everyone to see the irony of him adding to my hit counter (thank you, by the way), but at the moment I can't be bothered with it and so am deleting them.

Final post of the year... almost

As most are aware Pc Roberts died from a heart attack, but would he have experienced it if Mr Savage hadn't been such a violent person? We will never know. We salute him for willingly going to a situation which was fraught with danger in the first place.

I'm going to leave the expected charming comment there. If anything, I think it helps show the rest of the world the type of people we have to deal with.

I know I haven't exactly been a shining example of blogging effort the last couple of weeks, but a combination of applying 15 months in advance and being lucky in the pool system meant I have for the first time since the millenium got both christmas and new year off. So I've actually had a "normal" christmas, which has generally involved eating far too much and driving half the length of the country every other day seeing various relatives.

Tonight, I'm off to celebrate new year from somewhere other than the inside of a police car. I have been told that already no more leave will be authorised for the 2008 Christmas period! I'm off tonight with friends who don't feel the need to assault each other or their spouses or feel it is a good thing to become drunken heap on the pavement.

I hope all have a good celebration tonight in whatever form it takes, and I hope you don't have need to call 999 as you haven't got a great chance of getting through, and even less chance of someone turning up.

More cheery posts in 2008! Hopefully.

Sadness

My sympathies, sadness and anger are with the Met officers, but most of all with the family of the officer killed. (link)

Just a quick one

Just to say very briefly, and politically incorrectly, happy christmas all!

Moving on

I'll let the pay business slide for the moment. It seems for once the fed are actually being half-organised and might actually give us an opportunity to do something to show our displeasure beyond yet another email proforma telling us to write to an MP. We'll see what happens. The much vaunted power of the internet seems to have failed for me.

For as of course life goes on. I've been anchored to the custody desk, so for once with this freezing weather I'm not so fed up of the same 4 walls as usual. My sergeanting colleague wandered in the other day. He has now adopted a permanent expression of.... I can't quite describe it, but resigned acceptance about sums it up. He told me we're now down to 4 Pc's covering Suburbiaville, whose population and problems have not been reduced by a third to match the loss of the PC's. The governor won't be happy, as his statistics will have reduced by a third too. Never mind eh.

Which brings me on. Things I am likely not to see in a custody suite:

1) A PCSO. They're not allowed to arrest anyone.
2) A safer neighbourhood constable, unless they were really unlucky and were in the wrong place at the right time.
3) A safer neighbourhood sergeant. They're not even custody trained round my way.
4) Anyone under 16 who actually demonstrates some kind of regret or sorrow for being arrested.
5) Anyone in a suit before 0930am.
6) Anyone from SMT, unless someone has died.

Feel free to continue the list.

Clarification

Well, the last post didn't cause that much controversy.... never mind.

A couple of things had arisen though- I had completely forgotten that our glorious government had made protesting within a mile of Parliament Square illegal. I didn't really think much about it before but now it has become something I was actually seriously contemplating doing it really winds me up! If the government don't like being told by their electing public that they're not popular, they'll just make it illegal for the public to tell them about it. They don't want to run the risk of actually being confronted by one of their constituents. Its much easier to dismiss a protest when it's something your secretary can deal with via the postbox. I would love to see what the Met would do though if a several hundred old bill turned up outside the Houses of Parliament. Probably bus in all their PCSO's to give everyone a PND.

Anyhoo I did note that one of the things the Fed is now advocating is a mass protest rally. I'll take the credit for that ;-)

Now that this situation is getting a fair bit of news coverage the comments pages on some of the rags are getting letters sent in. I can't remember which one (and I can't be bothered searching) but someone was saying how pathetic this all was over 0.6%. (someone commented on the last post in the same theme)

So, to clarify. For myself, and I think the most of us, this is really not about the money. We are relatively well paid, especially compared to the other emergency services. Although there are unique aspects to our job that don't apply to the others- but more on that another time, if there's the interst.

If the government had backdated the 2.5% to make it a proper 2.5%, I personally wouldn't be jumping up and down.

What is galling is the way the government have gone about this pay rise. They canned a long standing police pay rise mechanism linked into inflation, which was accepted by "us" in return for the right to strike. They then enter into "binding" arbitration which recommends a 2.5% rise. They then, having stalled the issue long enough, accept the 2.5% increase, but only implement it 4 months after it should have been so that the overall increase is 1.9%.

Underlying all this of course is the fact most of us are seriously hacked off with the target obsessions of this government which has a direct impact on the way street level officers go about their jobs. Which has been, for the most part, a negative impact. Most people have seen or heard a story about how some minor petty offence- e.g playground scraps-which in all honesty should be dealt with by words of advice was dealt with according to the letter of the law- which whilst not illegal is not exactly proportionate. But its the pressure from the senior management, under pressure from the government, to improve detection rates which causes this.

Its not about the money. Its about the government constantly interfering and imposing their will. Now I will counter this to acknowledge there is a need for a publicly elected body to be concerned with the manner in which the country is policed but the manner and the method through which this government has gone about it has been woeful, and this pay issue has just been the final straw.

Time to Listen

Right.

This pay decrease we're getting. The fed are writing "angry and frustrated" letters and suggest you do the same. They are apparently holding a meeting to discuss it. ACPO meanwhile are officially disappointed.

Is it just me, or is this mostly a lot of hot air and vigorous arm waving and jumping up and down? I'd like to be proved wrong, but I'm not confident.

I don't think the government really give two hoots about letters from the federation or the opinion of ACPO.

Parliament go onto their 3 week christmas break on the 18th December. (3 week break!) They come back on the 7th January according to here.

I'd like to stand outside at Parliament Square and meet them as they go home to whichever one of their homes they're off to. I think that if enough of us are there giving them abuse as they go off to ponder which christmas tipple to have they might just start to listen. Let them leave their decadent halls with the sounds of hundreds of angry police officers ringing in their ears.

I say hundreds. Here's something to test the "power" of the internet. Is this a good idea? How about we start something from the ground up? Lets be honest, this won't affect ACPO. Can you see them recommending any kind of protest?

So how about it? Parliament Square, 2pm, 18th December? I'm not advocating anything other than a show of numbers and perhaps some light-hearted banter with an MP. If too short notice, how about we meet them coming back on the 7th Jan?

Email me, leave a comment, tell your friends, suggest it to a fed rep! - lets see if there's anything in this. I somehow feel I don't want to trust this issue completely to those who represent us- no disrespect to the fed, they just haven't got the clout, and ACPO wouldn't dare risk their rank (come on and prove me wrong!)- I feel I need to do something myself. And this is what I came up with.

I am interested to see if this post will go with a whimper or a bang.

Two pennies

Every blog has been ranting about our pay award. 1.9%.

Now I don't think we as a rule a particularly badly paid especially when compared to some other emergency services. Can't say I particularly like a pay increase below inflation though, that's really a tad off.

I don't know the ins and outs of the whole history of police pay but as far as I can tell some time ago an agreement was reached with the incumbent government that in return for the right to strike we would be guaranteed a certain pay increase each year. Quite what the mechanisms were regarding that I have no idea but the point is this government has reneged on that agreement.

MPs have such a cushy life which is what really makes this sting. Take a look at Coppers Blog for the best comparison of MPs claiming expenses for everything left right and centre. I have to buy my own torches, batteries and belt kit as the job issue ones are invariably poor quality. MPs can even claim a cycling to work allowance! At their rate, I'll have a pound a day thank you very much. Not much, but it'll buy me and the wife a takeaway at the end of each month. Oh except we don't have a cycling allowance.

I would've accepted 2.5%. What has really wound me up is the way the Jacqui "I live in an awfully nice area" Smith has said she accepts the 2.5% recommendation but won't backdate it to when it should have been implemented, making it a reality of 1.9%. Its underhand, sneaky and frankly I'd like to..... (I've been pondering what to say, and I still can't think of anything postable)

Here's the reality for me. I parade 6 officers to cover an urban / suburban population of approx 70,000. I spent 9 hours of my last shift writing a report regarding one individual person. On night shift there are dozens of spare car park spaces but come the morning every one is filled by someone, but who I never know as they're never with me on response work. Safer Neighbourhood teams have been set up with people taken from response teams to do the work response teams don't have enough time and resources to look at. The ethos of management revolves solely around perfomance indicators (and inextricably linked- whether the Superintendents get their bonus). "Support" Squads are set up with fat overtime budgets to target specific crimes (which are always but ALWAYS linked to performance indicators and bonuses) whilst team inspectors can only authorise overtime when it is completely unavoidable (i.e. arrest). They face discipline if it is overbudget and yet if there is an underspend the money is taken away from them to feed another support squad.

I knew there was a reason I didn't initially want to post about this. It winds me up just how messed up this system is. And the blame completely lies with the Labour Government as far as I'm concerned. I've not been in quite long enough to have worked under the Tories but this lot are obsessed with target culture and imposing a financial reward and sanction scheme on a job that essentially cannot be measured effectively with any statistical means. And those aspects which can be measured cannot give an accurate reflection of what they are meant to. 4 out of 5 crimes aren't investigated? So we are expected to put out witness appeals for every car window smashed as John Random forgot to put his TomTom away? There is often a reason why crimes are not investigated beyond their initial investigation. We don't have the resources to stand there at the following day asking people if they were present yesterday, to pore over hours of CCTV on the offchance a suspect may have been captured. I've known people get furiously angry for us not checking 8 hours of CCTV when they found their car window had been smashed in a car park. No suspect description, not known if he was a he or a she or in a car of their own, utterly unrealistic proposition. But my goodness she went mad at me for not doing it.

This post has gone on long enough, apologies.

PCSO uniform revisited.

This Guardian comment is free PCSO Steve business has jolted my creaky memory.

A while ago I posted a poll about whether PCSO's uniform should be more distinct from police officers. I never got round to talking about it.

The poll result is now parked right down the bottom of the page, underneath the youtube videos. The results are clear in what I freely admit is completely unscientific research (not that that would stop any media outlet presenting it as fact)- the overwhelming majority - 75%- say that a PCSO's uniform should be changed so it is less like a police officers. 67% say it should be completely different.

It would seem most people aren't fooled by the illusion the government wanted to create. If they see a uniform walking past, they want to know it is a police officer. Not someone whose training stipulates to simply stand by and observe someone getting a hiding or drowning, as their instruction is to call a police officer down to deal with it.

I think people would rather see the police officer in the first place. I know I would.

However, I am most curious to see that the remaining 25% would like to see the line blurred further between PCSO and PC- to make it so you only know the difference when you're standing next to them asking them about it.

I am interested to hear why.

Note (4th Dec)- in an unusual turn around of the usual order of things, the only PCSO blogger I know of has been resurrected! Link removed from graveyard accordingly. Check out the view from that side of the fence here. Good to see him back

Memories revisited

Went past that accident yesterday. The furrow marks on the grass are filling in, and the grass is already making a comeback. The trunk is still a scorched black with scars cutting deep into the wood near the base. Some sad flowers hang limply where they've been tied to the tree.

It's quite a different scene in daylight. The skidmarks have been worn away now by the traffic and rain.

I never mentioned that on the night in question the governor asked me to take a car away from response work - i.e. don't take calls- to specifically target the Dream Factories latest performance indicator.

We were "underperforming" because a while ago someone invented a new code to go on certain paperwork returns, and then made our returns on this new code a performance indicator. Because we weren't told about said new code, (well, it might have been published on the intranet site or even a forcewide email, but I don't count either of those as real communication) our return was zero. Oh dear. Someone didn't like that (probably the person who thought of the new code), sent word to Ivory Towers and so the governor got a rocket.

I did ponder the governor's request on the way to the accident, travelling in a blue light convoy behind the car who was supposed to be doing it.

Did we meet any performance indicators dealing with a fatal road accident? Nope. A bad day at the office for the governor.

PCSO Steve?

Was floating round the guardian unlimited comment is free website as I occasionally do and nearly fell off my chair when I noted PCSO Steve is a contributor! Whether or not the guardian's PCSO Steve is the one and the same as the Met's PCSO Steve is a different story, and whether the Met PCSO Steve is aware someone has nicked his name is one for the Met's Professional Should-Have-Better-Things-To-Do-With-My-Time Unit to investigate.

I ought to clarify he is an author, not a commenteer like myself.

The age old post that I have regarding PCSO uniform- that continues to attract hits from google searches- is the subject of his most recent post.

He comments, in apparent contradiction to what happens when police officers go beyond their training and call of duty (reference Totally Un PC), that PCSOs often get commendations for such. That and they are the centre of neighbourhood policing.... hum...

Thought you might like to know. I will keep an eye out!

For my previous musings on the rights and wrongs of PCSO's, click on the "PCSO's" label on the sidebar, or click here

Too late for a lecture

I look at the scene. We couldn't get close enough to be sure anyone was in it until the fire brigade had been at it for a while damping it down. But even with the heat and the force of the crash, there's still an unmistakable outline in the charred, melted cabin.

I look back down the road . I've heard the accounts from the witnesses who don't know whether to be angry or sad, and just stand there continually rubbing their eyes and running their hands across their head. His friend is just up the road, customised car with aftermarket alloys now sat quietly by the side verge. He saw what happened in his mirror and turned round, but too late to help. There are small pools on the carriageway from where he's thrown up.

I can picture the last moments. What was a bit of "fun", a quiet road with no-one else seemingly around. A friend in the car next to you, having a bit of a race up the road to see who's got the faster car off from the roundabout. You've got dads car, you know its a good one. You've had a good night, no drinking involved, you never do that. You're feeling good. Can't lose.

Except that that gentle curving bend isn't so gentle when you get up to speed. That traffic island you didn't see round the bend is coming up quick, bloody quick. But the road is wet. Suddenly at this speed with heavy panicked braking and slipperiness the road camber plays a crucial part. You're on the wrong side of the road. That slight slope engineered into the tarmac is now a deadly factor in the laws of friction and physics.

The back end's gone. This suddenly isn't fun any more. You're off the tarmac. Onto wet, slippy grass. Don't matter what you do with the steering wheel now.

You look up and have just enough time to take one last sharp breath in as you realise that its all gone so terribly, terribly wrong.

Not a single panel of the car is left untwisted or buckled. Parts of the car are spread over dozens maybe hundreds of yards. The fuel tank is split open and with a disintegrating red hot engine all around the spark is soon a consuming fire.

A single branch, barely a big twig, is knocked off the tree. In a weeks time, the only clue to the tragedy will be the blackened bark. Come a few months, only those who were there and those who have lost will know the horror that tree has seen.

I walk over to the smouldering wreck. I want to reach in and shake him, shout at him not to do it, don't race, as though I can go back through time and change what has happened. But I know I can't. The governor is here barking out orders. I wander back down the road to make sure all the cordons and logs are in place, witness details are registered, make sure people have got warm clothes as they're going to be there a long time. I start thinking where I can go and get some hot drinks for the troops later. They'll need them.

There's nothing we can do for the driver. The ambulance crews find something to do looking after the shell shocked witnesses. Its now a case of preserving every piece of scattered metal and plastic, each furrowed track on the verge, waiting for the time when every piece will be documented, logged, and meticulously photographed.

I want to take the mental image I have, somehow transfer it to paper and show it to the next one stopped for driving like an idiot, who thinks it acceptable nay encouragable to show off, to drive a car to its limit, and who surrounds himself with people who think likewise. Somehow make him understand that the driver of this one thought exactly the same thing 10 seconds before his final inglorious end.

Shock!

Now that I've got over the personal indignation that the overpaid football muppets couldn't qualify for a pub 5 a side tournament I'm actually quite glad, as it means I am now much more likely to have a less rioutous time next year. (But as an aside, I can't quite believe they are now getting paid up to another £150K each for failing to qualify- as far as I'm concerned you should not be paid to play for your country)

Anyhoo I noticed a while ago something that made me raise an eyebrow. The NPIA has issued an edict that local diversity is to be discouraged. The fact we have different ways of saying things across the country is downright dangerous.


Regional variations in how to say things like "yes" are to be stamped out because too many lives have been sacrificed, apparently. I joke you not, quote unquote from a Cambridge University Linguist. It also takes up too much time, according to the NPIA....

I've never seen anything as a result of this 25 grand either. Probably spent it all on lunchtime conferences buying a rent a quote to justify spending the 25 grand.