Silly Money

Bloody hell, no wonder the government want lots of free cash to boost the old coffers; it must be to make up for the billions of wasted cash the government have mis-managed over tax credits. You know tax credits, the scheme introduced to replace family allowance (& presumably to save money, why else to the government change things?).

You might also remember them because of the furore when some idiot posted CDs containing the personal details of millions of us who are claiming tax credits when they went missing.

Apparently, £14 billion has been lost in fraud, error & overpayment in just 4 years. The National Audit Office found that up to £1.5 billion was lost through fraud in 2007 alone bringing to £7.3 billion losses as a result of bogus claims in the last 4 years. £6.7 billion has been overpaid, only £2 billion of which has been taken back.

It’s really hard to comprehend. I think most people would be pretty concerned if you said a few million quid a year was just disappearing due to the inefficiency of a system brought in to streamline  & improve the process, but fourteen thousand million???

Absolutely staggering.

Life, University & Everything

My eldest is currently in the hunt for a suitable university in which she can run up a huge debt & fritter away my commutation.To that end, we’re in the midst of trips up & down the length & breadth of the land.

This week we decided to use the train. With petrol at around £1 a molecule we thought it might be cheaper to let the train take the strain. When I got to the ticket office I told the girl with a face like someone had filled it full of sour lemons & kicked it that I only wanted to sit in the train, not buy it but she just looked at me. If my kid ends up wanting to go to this university she can bloody well stay there for three years ‘cos there’s no way I’m funding a train fare every time she wants her washing done.

The whole train thing is a bit alien to me these days. The last time I went on one it was driven by a chap with soot on his face & I paid in groats.

For a start we couldn’t find anywhere to sit; all the seats which weren’t taken were piled up with discarded top secret Al Qaeda files. By the time we made our way through the first 2 carriages we’d been approached by 4 people offering to sell us stolen government laptops, disguised as bottles of water. Mind you, by the end of the journey I’d have paid laptop prices for a bottle of water.

For the money you pay on a train you’d have thought you could at least expect to sit down. It was nearly 2 hours before we got a seat. There wasn’t a single pregnant female available to offer me hers, outrageous.

The university looked quite nice. You could tell where the priorities lay though; the student union (or bar) was the size of Leichtenstein. I’m not too sure about the accommodation though. I don’t know about you but when I go to sleep at night I generally prefer my feet & head to be in the same room.

Overall, I think we were reasonably impressed with the place which would have been even better if it wasn’t for all the students.

We’ve got 4 more to check out. These appear to have been chosen by my child, not for their educational excellence but for how far away they are from my house. It’s such a serious situation that I’m even considering doing some overtime to cover the train/petrol costs.

Actually, that last bit is a complete lie, it’s not that bad!

Politicians Never Lie

Some footage has been discovered which proves Hilary Clinton’s claims that she landed under heavy gunfire on her visit to Bosnia.

I expect there will apologies now across the world’s media.

Respect

Footballers are amongst the last people I’d ever listen to for many reasons, some of which are contained in recent posts. However, I was quite impressed this week on hearing one interviewed on BBC Radio 5 Live. Unfortunately, I can’t recall who it was. It may have been Gary mabbutt, I know he was talking about something but I can’t remember whether it was this topic or something else.

Basically, it was to do with resepct for the referee. There has been a lot of talk recently about footballers & the way they act on the pitch (& off it, come to that) particularly towards the referee. I think someone who gets paid a squillion pounds a  minute for kicking a windbag around a field & diving all over the place turned his back on a referee who was admonishing him last weekend.

There were contrasts between football referees & rugby. I played rugby both at school & local club levels when I was a young PC. I remember that the referee’s word was God. You never argued & if you ever spoke to one or acknowledged him you used the word ’sir’.

On the rare occasions you did back-chat the ref he would pick up the ball & march your team 15 yards back towards your own line. If you made a comment about that, he’d march you back another 15 yards. Do that once or twice & the rest of the team will make sure you never open your mouth again. As far as I’m aware that is s til the case today; I heard one of the England internationals on the radio this week saying they still called the ref ’sir’.

Anyway, back to the footballer, Mabbutt or whoever it was.

He basically said that if footballers & managers can’t show the referee some respect & find it acceptable to argue the toss over every decision, swear at them & slag them off at every opportunity then is it any surprise that the rest of society is like this all the time. He acknowledged  the important tole footballers have to play as models for a large section of society & appeared to accept that they were letting society down, badly.

Mind you, it was less refreshing today when one of the managers came on the radio to say if referees want respect then they ought to give it to the players. With that attitude form one of the guys who runs the teams, there’s really not much hope.

On me ‘ead, son

Footballers. Living proof, if any were required, that simply having huge amounts of money doesn’t make it any more likely that you’ve got more than one functioning brain cell.

Take Everton star, Tim Cahill, who scored against Portsmouth at the weekend. His goal-line celebration  consisted of a tribute to his brother who happens to be serving a six-year sentence for partially blinding a man in an unprovoked attack during which he kicked Christopher Stapley twice in the head after taking a run-up at him.

Cahill pretended to be in handcuffs after scoring the goal on Sunday in honour of his jailed brother.

With the youth of today going to hell in a handcart & a generation lost to avarice, selfishness & the me, me, me ethic, is this really the type of person we want to hold up as a role model?

Come to that, are footballers in general the kind of people we want our innocent impressionable youngsters looking up to? They are the most dishonest of all sportsmen playing a game which is almost based on cheating in order to win. They fall over at the drop of a hat, writhing in agony until the decision goes their way whereupon they rise faster than Lazarus on speed.

Bunch of overpaid, cheating, prima donnas, the lot of ‘em.

Bad Boys

If I’m not happy about something the most I usually do is bitch about it with Dave at work, it doesn’t do any good but it makes you feel better afterwards. I don’t work with Dave but sometimes we overlap; he’s on a different shift. Carol is also on another shift & when I overlap with her we usually spend most of the time bitching about this & that.

I see some people in London also like bitchin’ about stuff. They do it in a rather more ‘open’ way though. It does strike me as rather quaint that anyone with a poliitical point to make can wander off the streets of our capital, climb onto the roof of one of the most well-known buildings in the world & bitch about stuff.

I think this is how we should deal with rooftop protests….

Earthquake Appeal

A major earthquake measuring 5.8 on the Richter scale hit in the early hours of last night. Epicentre: Basildon, Essex. Victims were seen wandering around aimlessly muttering "fackin ‘ell" and "whattacant" The earthquake decimated the area causing approximately £30.00 worth of damage. Several priceless collections of mementoes from the Balearics, Spanish Costas and Romford market were damaged beyond repair. Three areas of historic burnt out cars were disturbed. Many locals were woken well before their giro arrived.

Essex FM News reported that hundreds of residents were confused and bewildered, still trying to come to terms with the fact that something interesting had happened in Basildon. One resident - Tracy Sharon Smith, a 15-year-old mother of 5 said "It was such a shock, my little Chardonnay Mercedes came runnin’ into my bedroom cryin’. My younges’ two, Ashley ‘n’ Brooklyn, slep’ froo it all. I was still shakin’ when I was watchin’ Kilroy the next mornin’." Apparently though, looting, muggings and car crime did carry on as normal. Rescue workers found one girl in the rubble smothered in claret [slang for blood]; "Where are you bleeding from?" they asked her. "Bleedin’ Romford," said the girl "woss that gotta do with it?"

The British Red Cross has so far managed to ship 4,000 crates of Pepsi max to the area to help the stricken locals. Rescue workers are still searching through the rubble and have found large quantities of personal belongings, which include benefit books, jewellery from Elizabeth Duke at Argos and Bone China from Poundland.

HOW CAN YOU HELP

This appeal is to raise money for food and clothing, parcels for those unfortunate to be caught up in this disaster. Clothing is most sought after, items most needed include: Fila or Burberry baseball caps, Kappa tracksuit tops (his and hers), shell suits (female), white sport socks, Rockport boots and any other items usually sold in Matalan. Food parcels may be harder to come by, but are needed all the same. Required foodstuffs include Microwave meals, tins of baked beans, ice cream and cans of Special Brew.

22p buys a biro for filling in the compensation forms,
2.00 Pounds buys chips, crisps and Tango drinks for a family of 9,
5.00 pounds will pay for a packet of B&H and a lighter to calm the nerves of those affected.

Please do not send tents for shelter,as the sight of posh housing is unfair on the population of neighbouring areas of Vange, Pitsea and Laindon.

PS: I stole this…..

Trusting Solicitors - Update

Regular readers will recall the story I did a while ago regarding one Jim Beresford, a solicitor who was getting rich by ripping off miners over their claims for poor health compensation.

Companies of the ilk of Mr Beresford were charging miners fees from their compensation awards which the government had already paid, effectively charging twice for a minimal amount of work.

Some good news for the thousands of miners have been ‘defrauded’ because the Legal Complaints Service are to contact 500,000 miners regarding these false charges which could see millions being returned to the miners. The government has paid out around £7.6 billion to 760,00 miners suffering from respiratory diseases (blimey, that’s an awful lot of miners!).

MP  Kevin Burrow said "Some solicitors have got richer out of this scheme."

Winehouse Blues

Working with a shift mainly made up of women, I get to see an awful lot of trashy celeb magazines. I don’t generally read them as I’ve no interest in the lives of the rich & stupid, and to be honest, I’m fed up to the back teeth with people of questionable talent who suddenly achieve riches beyond most people’s wildest dreams and don’t have the first idea how to control it.

I’m sick to the back teeth of hearing about how Amy Winehouse needs help. As far as I’m concerned the only help she requires is to divest her of a significant proportion of her massive riches (in the form of some hefty fines) & a spell between the four walls of one of Her Majesty’s finest establishments. I was somewhat gratified that the USA appear to be taking a step in the right direction by refusing a visa to the drug-crazed bint. What a pity that the people who run the Grammy’s aren’t following the same line and are allowing her to perform via satellite link.

A good start would be for the Grammys to refuse to have anything to do with her, all radio stations to take her off their play-lists & then the message might get round that she is an appalling roll model for youngsters who just get to see that drugs misuse & huge earnings are acceptable partners & there are no consequences to illegal & ill-advised behaviour.

If she wants to snort mind-altering substances up her nose, I really don’t have any problems with that, it’s her life. But I don’t see why she should profit whilst doing so.

Revenge can be Sweet

One of the biggest pains of my online life is bloody spam email. It is no exaggeration to say that 98% of all emails I receive through various sources, are a complete waste of space. If I’m not being told my girlfriend wants me to have a larger todger I’ve won some lottery and all I have to do to get my hands on the winnings is give my bank account details to some Nigerian criminal.

Even with anti-spam software I still get bombarded with shite which takes up my precious time if only to delete the bloody stuff. Wouldn’t it be nice to get your own back on some of these worthless toe-rags who blight everyone’s existence?

Take a look at 419Eater, a website which showcases the innocent punter who has got his own back on some of the the Nigerian Scam artists. OK, he hasn’t locked any up, nor has he capped any of them, but he has made a few of them look stupid. Check out his email replies and the photographs in which he gets the scammers to pose holding ridiculous messages up to the camera.

MPs & Scandals

A Few of my Favourite Things

Not much time today for anything thoughtful, so here’s a collection of videos of one of my favourite things - motocyclists making arses of themselves.

One rule for MPs … again

News today of another MP ‘apologising’ for something which many other people would be staring at the inside of a police interview room.

Tory MP Derek Conway "employed" his son as a researcher whilst he was a student at university. MPs are fully entitled to employ their spouses or other family members. I’m surprised that this is still the case given the depths of the murky waters many MPs have found themselves in when it comes to money and the lengths which people like Tony Blair have gone to to publicly decry ’sleaze’. Privately their ethics appear to be somewhat different. I’m sure I’m not the only voter who was completely amazed by the recent revelations that Peter Hain, a man at the very forefront of government, still can’t follow the rules in relation to how they accept cash to fund their exploits, despite the very high profile publicity given to the same subject since his party came into power.

Conway’s son was employed as his father’s researcher at a sum of over £1000 a month, not bad for a 19-year-old student on a full-time degree course. He also received ‘bonuses’ totalling £10,000 & is said to have been paid in the region of £45,000 over three years, but the Standards and Privileges Committee found "no record" of what work he had done nor the hours he’d worked and said the £1,000-plus a month he was paid was too high. There is no evidence that the MP’s son actually carried out any work for his father & that he was overpaid for the position he was given. The MP has been told to repay £13,000 and faces a 10-day suspension from the House.

The committee’s assessment all but acuse the MP of criminal activity saying this arrangement was "at the least an improper use of parliamentary allowances" and "at worst, a serious diversion of public funds".

I expect that Mr Conway is currently counting his lucky stars rather than waiting for the early knock on the door from PC Bloggs of the Met Fraud Squad. He’s apologised to the House & accepted the committee’s assessment & recommendations.

That’s all right then.

What next?

Now that I’m on the home straight leading to the last fence before the finish line (retirement), I often find myself dreaming about what’ll happen next year. I’ll be 50-ish with at least 25 years of working life in me and not the bloody faintest idea what to do with it. Well that’s not strictly true, I have loads of ideas what to do with the next 25 years, it’s just that all of them will still require me to pay for a mortgage, children going through university & everything else so I’ll need a job, of some description.

The trouble is what does 30 years as a police officer qualify you for? There must be loads of things but when I try to narrow it down what is there? I know mates who have gone into security, joined a private investigation team, worked for the Highways Authority & the council. I know someone who turned his hand to tree surgery, several who are courier drivers, a couple who deliver very expensive cars from one part of the country to the next. Someone delivers & collects caravans, one churns out works of wooden furniture from his garage. There is theguy who now runs a pest control business, at least 2 electricians & one training to be a plumber. Quite a few stay on in the job in one form or another. I know a chief’s driver, officers who have returned as civvy driving instructors, quite a few police comms ops return the next day as a civvy comms ops.

Me? I’m not sure I want to do any of those things. The trouble is it’s a big scarey world out there. When all you’ve done for the majority of your working life is police work in some strange way’s it’s a safe world, you have a regular job. As long as you don’t nick anything or post stupid things on the Internet (doh!) they can’t kick you out so it’s a pretty regular wage. You don’t have to worry about the bosses shipping everything to Poland or China, you don’t need to worry about people not buying your cars any more. Out there in the real world there’s a whole lot of variables I’m not used to.

I’ve got a year or so to think about it & plan.

Maybe I can just sell the kids and move to the coast.

More Scum

This is the face of the latest peice of scum-sucking low life to hit the news - Nicholas Hague.

Hague’s handiwork can be see in the photograph below. You might need some assistance to work out that the battered face is that of a 60-year-old female, Susan Collins, after Hague kicked her to the ground and repeatedly stamped on her face when she declined to give him a cigarette in Warrington. The victim is still in a wheelchair, is blind in one eye and 4 metal plates were used to reconstruct her face.

Susan was put on a life support machine as a result of this pond-life’s actions.

Hague had received an 18-month jail term in 2005 after admitting helping another man kick a 31-year-old man to death in Warrington in 2004.

Excuse me, did I read that right? This man got 18 months for helping to kick to death another person? 18 months? Is someone having a laugh?

How many times do stories have to appear like this before someone in the judicial system will sit up and take note and dish out some proper sentences. If this man had been given anything like the kind of sentence most reasonable people would expect for assisting in a murder, he wouldn’t have been on the streets to do almost the same thing to an innocent 60-year old woman.

As if the original sentence wasn’t joke enough, as a result of this unprovoked attack on a woman, the judge jailed him indefinitely for GBH recommending he serve at least 3 1/2 years!

I think it’s about time people started sueing judges and defence solicitors for actions which ultimately allow scum like Hague to go out and do it again.

More info here, here & here.  

Happy New Year

Well it’s my last New Year’s Eve working as a copper (provided I stay on same the shift pattern) because next year my shift are on rest days and the one after that I’ll be a pensioner!

When I was younger I used to try and ring my Mum on New Year’s Eve. I couldn’t always ring just after midnight but I tried to do it as near as possible. This was before mobile phones, so you had to have access to a landline. I’ve rung her from some weird & wonderful places. Several times I’ve called from Casualty and only once because I was the patient. I’ve even rung her from the mortuary. That’s a strange place to be wishing someone a Happy New Year.

I’ll be in the control room tonight around midnight. Whatever I’m doing I know it won’t involve having sufficient time to make a private phone call to my mother and there’s no point in wishing here as she hasn’t got a computer. I’ll give her a call some time tomorrow.

But as you are here, I’ll wish you a Happy and safe 2008. It’ll be my last full year as a police officer. Everyone I know who has retired says the last year won’t last long. I don’t care, I’m on the final straight.

Best wishes….

Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas

& a Safe & Peaceful New Year *

* what did you expect, War & Peace? It is Christmas Day… 

If you go down to the woods today

I want to go & work in Sudan; they clearly have no requirements for easy public order sanctioned detections or concerns about knife crime.

This is acceptable behaviour on the streets of Sudan. Which is fine, it’s their country. Thank goodness they crack down hard on people who give names to their teddy bears.

 Warning: Anyone having anything to do with this bear should be executed 

Micro-shaft

This has nothing to do with policing, or society in general but I just feel like having a rant.

Is it me or is Windows Vista the biggest pile of shite in software history?

I’ve been using it for months. I have all the latest drivers for all my computer components & it still crashes to the ‘blue screen of death’. I’ve seen more crashes in the last few months than I did in a few years of using XP.

I still can’t get some of my peripherals to work. My scanner, joystick & PDA refuse to talk talk to the PC, some of my software which worked flawlessly with XP just causes Vista to fall over with it’s legs in the air kicking & screaming. I;ve seen more crashes from Vista than a drunk joyrider with no eyes.

If Vista was a kettle or a car I’d be entitled to a repair under warranty or a refund so why do I have to fork out £100 or so with absolutely no recompense if it doesn’t actually work?

No wonder Microsoft is the richest company in the world. Tossers.

Bank Automatons

Have you noticed how bank & credit card companies are always telling you to be careful with your ID? You have to make sure you shred all your old statements & bills, protect your PIN numbers by never writing them down, don’t allow others to use your cash cards & never give personal information to people you don’t know. All this to protect yourself from identiy fraud.

Am I the only one who thinks it’s rather ironic that when they ring you the first thing they do, after you’ve confirmed it’s you they want to talk to, is to ask you - "for security purposes" - to divulge your date of birth?

Like they’ve found some paperwork left outside a bank in a black bag (’cos the bank can’t be arsed to keep your details safe) and the bit which has your date of birth has been smeared with the rain, oh give him a bell and pretend your Barclaycard and just ask him to confirm his date of birth then we’re all set to take out some mortgages, loans & credit cards using his details, fantastic).

I find a good way to deal with banks & credit card companies when they say "For security purposes can you confirm your date of birth?" is to just say "No". If they ask why, just explain that you are following their advice to protect your identity from fraud attempts by refusing to divulge personal information to strangers.

This usually stymies them as they have pre-prepared scripts which they usually just read out like automatons  they’re not set up for user-interference. They have instructions not to divulge any information unless they can confirm your ID - like anyone living in your house is not going to know the top secret information about when you were born! The bank representative then has to end the call as they can’t even tell you what it’s about & you are free to get on with the decorating. Job’s a good ‘un.