People are people, the mix of personalities is bloody massive! So I reckon, in the police there’ll be all the same mix of types as everywhere else. There’ll be some rational enough to be sensible, but there’ll also be those other dull arse ones. Thankfully I’ve only ever seen the nasty jobsworths on t’Internet phone videos, the ones that definitely needed sacking or sommat. For the police take some sort of an oath ‘… upholding fundamental human rights… cause the peace to be kept… and prevent all offences against people…’. Did you know that police, are policing by consent and cannot legally be instructed to arrest a person? It’s all supposed to be discretion and operational independence. Basically to assist us and therefore this must never be the other way around. For us serving them would be a police state and ruled by totalitarianism. As for those old fashioned non-democratic ideas that still hold strong in England and Wales, to swear and oath to serve the Queen, well that’s surely got to go!
My encounters with coppers (cop coming from carpe which is Latin for seize, as in “carpe diem”) and Bobbies (nickname of Robert Peel who reformed London police in 1829) have basically been few and far between. Mostly with those trying and succeeding to be helpful and so far (touch wood) I’ve not met a really bad one, but only heard of them with a {{{shudder}}}. The ones I’ve met are some friendly~enough, small place coppers and very few elsewhere city types (perhaps drafted in). It has included some really lovely friendly, caring people and one very sensible one in London, who let a mother pushing a crying baby in a pushchair through a protest barrier. I did have to wait to get his eye contact before asking him nicely, but once he saw my calm face he responded very sensibly likewise. Thankfully, I’ve actually not as yet, met any police twonks or arseholes, but I’m assured they exist. Maybe you know the type, those you see filmed on YouTube with closed off jobsworth mentality, just doing what they’ve been told and shut off from reasonable discourse. Sad for us and them. For that’s wrong, that’s all round bloody dangerous and that’s worryingly like a ruddy cyborg!
Anyways, Bobbies, garda, officer, plod, kops… call ’em what you will under your breath, but they’re part of us. They’re human and just like the rest of us, are at times just as likely to be horribly cranky. You know, where we might need kindness and intelligence encouraged more than having our buttons pressed. So anyways, here’s a funny question: What do you call two of ’em? A: “Knickers” maybe? Yeah, well perhaps I need arresting for that pun, but Ronnie Corbett actually took the biscuit with: ‘The perfect crime was committed last night, when thieves broke into Scotland Yard and stole all the toilets. Police say they have absolutely nothing to go on’.
Over Soil 