It isn't always convenient living where I live but it has some terrific advantages.
Parking outside the house 5.30ish today with my 11-year-old granddaughter, saw a pull on the other side of the road (a far from rare event actually in these parts). A navy blue Vauxhall people carrier with discreet behind-the-grille blues had pulled a 3 Series BMW convertible, same colour, roof up. You couldn't tell who the plod were, unless you assumed they were the three who were neither a black guy nor a blonde woman. One of them looked Middle Eastern. Then two more arrived in a maroon Mondeo with a magnetic blue on its roof.
'Look, darling,' I said to my granddaughter. 'Detectives!'
She gazed in considerable disbelief at these two thuggish young guys in grubby patterned tee shirts, both with their hair dyed a luridly brassy shade of blond, as they swaggered across the road to the incident. On arrival they blended in perfectly with their colleagues and possible victims. Not one of the six or seven people looked anything like a copper.
As I said, there are advantages to living here. Didn't stay rubbernecking for the end of the story though, to see who was arresting or releasing whom. Too busy, and I think people are entitled to a bit of privacy. Anyway there were two bus stops right there, one on each side of the road.
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Not one of the six or seven people looked anything like acopper. so what do they look like then, the average copper?
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They used to have a look, Westpig, especially when in uniform. Or perhaps it's just a 'vibe'.
It's true that some 45 years ago I was questioned briefly by two plainclothes plod in Paddington Station cafeteria at 2 or 3 in the morning. I was working at home nearby and had gone there for air and a coffee. These two characters materialised beside me and slid into two chairs at my table.
The boss was tall, rawboned, gaunt, lantern jaw, short iron-grey hair, wearing some sort of buff-coloured dirty mac, with plod-style dark serge trousers and unmistakably huge black polished shoes. The sidekick, who said not a single word, looked like a tough rent boy, gym shoes, black jeans and satin zipfront anorak thing.
They were absolutely terrifying. And I have to say that only one of them looked like a policeman.
However I don't mean to imply that all coppers look the same or alike or anything too uniform.
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>>so what do they look like then, the average copper?
I don't know----- they're usually stood behind me with my arm bent up my back! I can sometimes see the boots if I look between my legs. ):
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LOL, mjm. I have to go back beyond 1960 to remember anything like that!
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Body-language and attitude WP.
In my teen years the local petty crims who caused most of the trouble could spot a copper at fifty paces. In their favorite pub they'd be out of the fire exit before a plainclothes cop got through the door.
Kevin...
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>> so what do they look like then, the average copper?
Dixon
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>>>> so what do they look like then the average copper?
Please indulge me PU. I post this in the hope of amusing Westpig.
I have just remembered that in the late 80s, when I was a hack, I had some family business in Bristol and took, for company, a contact who had become a friend, a political representative of a North African nationalist movement. We went in my Renault 18 GTX estate, an excellent car, fastish, economical, fairly comfortable and very good-looking in pale silver with brown windows.
Afterwards we stopped off in Stroud where another friend, then leading a surrealist punk band, had a gig. The venue was a very large pub with a stage. I got a pint and stood in a dark corner at the back among dope-smoking nippers as my friend ranted and bawled on stage. My North African buddy got a coke and wandered about. His languages were Arabic, Spanish, French and English in that order, but presently he came up to me chuckling and said: 'I think these people think we are police.' It's true he was as always somewhat formally dressed, having frequent truck with politicians, lords and newspaper hacks.
Surely not, I thought, but then looking round I could see that there was a sort of space around us and some of the nippers were looking at us askance. At that moment a young girl of about 18 came up and with charming but rather falsely naive effrontery asked me: 'Are you a pig?'
I tried to frown and said with mock severity: 'Are you asking if I am a policeman?' The girl giggled and said I couldn't be one, because her question would have annoyed me if I had been. I thought she might well be wrong there, but didn't argue.
Anyway, the answer to yr question Westpig is or was, to some people anyway, er: me.
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Hello Hello - GCHQ computer?, yes that right, this post does contain the phrase(s) North african Nationlist Movement, Arabic, Politicians, lords,
Yes it was also the same poster that spoke of "Jihad" yesterday
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Yes it was also the same poster that spoke of "Jihad" yesterday
No doubt you are trying to make some point TVM.
Should we avoid mentioning any of these things for fear of becoming cyber suspects?
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Should we avoid mentioning any of these things for fear of becoming cyber suspects?
Alas Lud my little fundamentalist friend, for you, its too late
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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I would say SOCA / Immigration Enforcement or the like. Doubt they were 'Police' in the traditional sense.
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Im not plain stupid, just a special kind of stoopid.
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Traditional maybe not, but I don't think the dyed-blonds in the Mondeo were Home Office officials. Too flash for that. They were definitely cops, and fairly classy ones.
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Drugs squad.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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Not impossible TVM. But there was no energetic searching going on of the kind we sometimes see round here.
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Years ago the Doc' Martin shoes were a great giveaway and I can go back even further than them. Dad was in the 'Job' for 28 years and I had a great time with a lot of great blokes as a kid growing up. Here in Devon some of the 'Plain Clothes' guys may just as well wear flashing lights!!
Happy days they were..................MD.
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Apart from a tenuous link in the OP can we bring this back to something like motoring :-) ?
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I did mention that the pull was a late-model 3 series convertible with the roof up PU, didn't I?
Thought you might find that interesting actually.... :o)
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Well it was and looked promising for a bit !
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This will have been in the soft South, I imagine ;-)
I saw the Northern equivalent recently: young lad in a shop doorway with one copper's hand on his collar. What was plainly really bothering him, though, was the copper on a horse hemming him in and lifting very heavy hooves up as it stood watching.
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Only nancy northerners are scared of ponies.
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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