Friday, December 19, 2008

A few things on my mind

A lot goes through your mind as you struggle to sleep, like this cough has done to me.

Any of this sound familiar?

1. Going to sleep by the sound of a CD. Wake up after a couple of hours. But it's still playing, and it only lasts an hour. Check clock. It's only been 10 minutes.

2. You sleep fitfully, waking every 10 to 20 minutes. FInally, it's less than an hour till you have to get up. You fall into a deep sleep and the wake only when th alarm goes off.

3. You toss and turn, so hot that there are barely 2 square inches of duvet left dry. You turn the duvet round 90 degrees to find some more dry bits. You drop off to sleep. When you awake 5 minutes later, you appear to have soaked a further 4 feet of quilt. Don't even think about the pillow.

4. This is the doozy. You wake at 4.04am to the sound of an approaching - something. Is it a faltering plane? A VERY early train? Aha! It arrives almost overhead and declares itself to be a helicopter. It's a few hundred yards away (probably - difficult to tell in the dark) and very high up, so it looks like a giant star, except for the green and red flashing lights. Now you are awake, you decide to have a pee. When you come back, it will be gone. But it doesn't go for more than half an hour. By which time you are tired of trying to use it to mask your breathing on account of this is FAR more intrusive than creaky lungs.

Who'd be sick? Who'd live in London, where noise abatement prevents us being disturbed by night flights, but allows the police to terrorise us with this torture.

Still on the topic of our wonderful police, what a week they've had.

- Praised for successfully prosecuting teenage killer of a 10-year-old boy.
- Castigated for a former successful prosecution of a woman who was said to have slammed a baby's head into a banister rail. She has been released after a retrial.
- Castigated for focusing on one suspect, and trying to honey-trap him, keeping him on remand for 13 months, ruining his life, while the real murderer (of a young mother in a public place in front of her baby son) went on to kill another mother, and this time her child too. He'd been reported by various people since before the first murder, including by his mother, and failed to turn up for 2 DNA tests, but the police suspected nothing.

- Then, the Piece de Resistance. A coroner tells the inquest jury they cannot find "unlawful killing" against the police who shot dead Jean Charles de Menezes on a London Underground train. The jury did what they could. But no-one will pay.

So our wonderful police can kill with impunity, but cannot catch a killer even when someone points him out.

Can you imagine if they were all armed all the time?

13 comments:

  1. MY GOD! the very thought of it!!

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  2. Sounds like a madcap episode of Keystone Cops. Only murder victims pay the ultimate price and still don't receive any justice. Sad ... just sad. And I know ... because our police here in Chicago aren't any better. They are lazy, stupid, unethical, not to mention fat and ugly. Nothing like our dear Bobby.

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  3. I still have this belief that our policeforce knows what it's doing, but every time I read about the stuff they get wrong, a little bit of that belief gets chipped away.

    I wish you a better nights sleep tonight..and enjoy the school holidays as much as you can :-D

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  4. Just out of curiosity since I live where police carry guns all the time, when are your police armed and when are they not armed?

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  5. Who needs firearms when the police are already so adept at shooting themselves in the foot without actual guns ?
    Your sleep pattern sounds amazingly familiar. I hope you are feeling much better now.

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  6. Music Wench stole my question...

    It's a bitch not being able to sleep :(

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  7. LMAO at the sleep patterns. I understand all about the noise, I live between the theme parks here in Orlando and I hear fireworks LOUDLY every night at all hours! It was very exciting at first, but now I want to outlaw every firework on Earth!!!

    About the cops, everyone knows the story here, they are trying to find enough evidence to convict little Caylee's mother. All we have heard here is how bad of a job the cops are doing. I have no idea if that's really true, but that's the way the news reports it.

    BTW does ANYONE have a link to the Utah show that VDO was on???

    Tricia

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  8. http://www.abc4.com/mostpopular/story/Vincent-DOnofrio/RuOZIpVlR0KNciBxKo6aBg.cspx

    and also -

    http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=s2OTa3pMIHQ

    Police in the UK are armed at international airports, that much I know. Not too sure about at other times.

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  9. Anonymous11:29 am

    Sorry to hear you're still 'struggling' there Val *hugs*

    I sometimes think our police can't do right for doing wrong. In the wake of the 7/7 bombings, which is when the shooting occurred, they were on high alert. It was a tragic mistake, but what were they supposed to do when they thought someone was another suicide bomber? Being British, politely ask if he happened to have a bomb on him he intended to detonate and if he had, would he KINDLY mind NOT doing so? Or, as Robin Williams once said 'Shout; stop, or I'll shout stop again'? Hindsight is a wonderful thing.... just my opinion of course ;0)

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  10. Thank you for the link Lozzie!!!! OMG he's so cute! I LOVE that interview, doesn't he seem like the sweetest man?
    Did anyone see the cooking segment? If so, how was it, what did he do?

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  11. Music Wench, only police specially trained use guns. There are "Armed Response Units" in every area, with guns locked up inside the cars, and they have to get authorisation to get them out. They are usually sent to a location and told to arm. A small number, such as on protective duty, carry firearms, often concealed. And of course, there are armed patrols in particular places at particular times. I've never seen one, not even two years ago when the airports were on high alert and I was about to fly to Canada.

    Diane, to tell you my impressions, and my knowledge, of the shooting will take a whole post - so that's what I'll do.

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  12. Anonymous7:46 pm

    I still don't think the police set out that day with the intention of killing anyone - like I said, that's just my opinion.

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  13. It's the same over here. Like they say, if you want to find a cop, go to a donut shop. lol The cops in Tacoma are inept, rude, brusque, etc.

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