The Police, Abusive Messages, and settling down
Now if someone is sticking abusive messages through your front door, what should you do about it? Well, going to the police sounds like a reasonable option, doesn’t it? But what if it’s the police that are putting the abusive messages through your door in the first place?
Okay, so as abusive messages go, it’s not the most insulting, it’s not threatening, but it is directed at my pride and self-esteem:
Tragically, no one fancies you at allNortumbria Police
So why had Northumbria Police decided to insult me, and try and add discord to my marital relationship?
It was actually a Neighbourhood Watch Newsletter, and as well as the usual headline statistics of crime in the area, including the run-down on crime in September: “suspicious youths” being seen and reported to the police on Church Street, but patrols being unable to find anything — yes, I do live in a quiet area.
The bit where they took the opportunity to insult me was actually in reporting a series of different telephone scams, and it makes a lot more sense in context:
Someone fancies you
You can get texts saying that somone fancies you, but of course to find out more you have to call a premium rate number. If you do call, you’ll just find a trader trying to sell a service. Tragically, no one actually fancies you at all.
Northumbria Police
Apart from deliberately taking the quote of of context to pretend I was insulted, the other thing I noted was the lack of crime in my area. I’m obviously in a very middle clarss kind of a place, and it just contrasted with a pub I was in the other week.
Now I’m not going to name the pub, for fear of offending the clientele, so I’ll just say it’s in Newcastle city centre and it was showing the Manchester City v. Newcastle United match last weekend. From my starting point, it was the first pub I came to which advertised as having the match on, so I went in, got myself a diet coke (or pepsi, I just use the term “coke” generically to annoy both Coca-Cola and Pepsi) found a space to watch the match.
For anyone doubting my memory, it was a coke. The kick-off was at about quarter to one in the afternoon, and I just can’t start drinking that early.
…anyway, I was chatting away to the other people in the pub and I noticed that quite a high proportion of the patrons had tattoos of the “self-inked” variety. Obviously this doesn’t in itself prove anything of course, but I was inferring that at least some of those would have been inked while staying at Her Majesty’s Pleasure. I don’t know why it pleases the Queen so much to have people locked up, though…
So, that’s just to set the scene: it wasn’t making me uncomfortable or anything, I was happily talking to (and arguing with) people about football, it was just something I’d noticed. And then I became aware of a conversation going on behind me, where a gentleman was bemoaning his luck, claiming that he’d never really got into any serious trouble but he had a bad reputation anyway …
I’ve never really been in any trouble, apart from fighting. You’ve just got to look at what I’ve gone to court for — Assault, ABH, assault, assault with a deadly weapon, assault, wounding with intent, and GBH twice. If was only really the time when I did eighteen months for manslaughter was anything serious. It’s always just been the fighting. But I’m in my fifties now, I suppose I should start to think of settling down a bit…Big Scary Man In The Pub
Obviously his definition of serious was slightly different to mine. Needless to say, when I left the pub later, I was extremely careful not to jog his arm and spill his drink on the way past. But it just goes to show: I think I’m a fairly rounded character, have seen and heard a lot of views and opinions, but in a number of respects, I really have lived a sheltered life…
Hello. I am 
Ahhh…I was enjoying that and it just sort of petered out.
I hope that bloke didn’t get you…
Should we call the police?
Help! Help! I’m being viciously attacked by a bunch of sarcastic readers…