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plod

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Posts posted by plod

  1. I live in a rural area and there are very few fat women here. You do see some around but nowhere near as many as in the UK. I don't buy the smoking argument either. We had a party with some 30 women and there was one smoker. The younger women (late teens early twenties) smoke as they do in the UK. I think it is down to regular meals, little or no snacking (the comment about eating on the train was very pertinent) and also perhaps the style of the food - starter, small mains and small dessert, occasinal cheese.
  2. There might be some "political correctness" - whatever that means in this context, in the upper echelons of the police but at street level I'm not sure that the average officer is thinking such things to any great extent. It's not easy having a code of practice to define the limits of stop and search without it either being draconian ie police can stop and search anybody without good reason, or insipid ie you almost have to have sufficient grounds to arrest before searching.
  3. My point is that it is easier to make basically law-abiding people take a bit of extra care at the wheel. The kind of people who don't baulk at sticking a knife in someone are, I venture to suggest, largely immune from education. Police resources should, and almost certainly are, directed at catching people who carry and use knives.
  4. Do you not find the Top 14 a bit predictable with ony about 5 teams in with any chance of making the play-offs? There are the really big boys with vast amounts of cash and then the others whose only interest, it seems to me, is to avoid relegation. Mind you, the GP is also a bit predictable with Wasps (curse them) winning again last season. I wish Toulouse well, at least they aren't in Gloucester's pool for the Heineken.
  5. Can't speak for Villeneuve Minervois, which is south of us (we are near Albi) but generally winters are short but can be cold. Summers usually hot but the last few years have seen variations on this. When we arrived in January 2006 we had 30 cms of snow a day later. This May and June were awful, somebody told me that 400 litres of water fell for every square metre. A good job too as we then had about five weeks without any rain. It is now, mid-August, barely 18 degrees. However, the sun is always warm and on a still, sunny day in January you can sit outside in a tee-shirt once the sun is up.  The hottest temperature I have known here is 44C and the lowest -12C - quite a variation!
  6. I detect the sanctimonious bleating of the middle class here for whom only the lower orders should have to have dealings with the police. If they break the law then they are responsible about it and shouldn't have to face the judicial consequences. I am reminded of those people who, despite being asked to wait for an announcement, go to the car deck on the ferry and climb into their Volvos or BMWs before it is given, because they are responsible people and it doesn't matter if they break the rules.
  7. It's a fact that patrolling police aren't very visible; but then back in 1985 when I started I was amazed how few of us there were, especially night duty, to cover a large area of SE London. We were pretty snowed under by paperwork then, but it got worse. Now the police have to record everything. In a diary one officer calculates that a simple theft of a push-bike used up 20 hours of his time - as he says, two and a half shifts. Incidentally, he also agrees with a lot of front-line officers that there are too many squads, office workers etc. When you are patrolling you want to be able to call back-up if you get into trouble. In the Met there is always plenty at hand, but imagine rural Wiltshire, a PC getting a shoeing in some village in the back of beyond might have to wait 15 minutes for assistance. But then we retire early with a large pension, boat etc.
  8. Most police officers (including retired ones like me) get fed up with the ("they retire so early on a massive pension") jibes from you. The reason we do retire earlier (after 30 years) is that our pension contributions are set at 11 per cent. We don't make the laws, neither do we prosecute anybody, including motorists. The penalty your "OH" got was presumably dispensed by a magistrate, not by a police officer. Oh and I can assure you that most police officers have not the slightest interest in traffic offences.
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