Dress code

Today's Telegraph carried a large picture of a heavily armed policewoman attending the recent incident at Wood Green, just across the road, as it happens, from where we used to live (illustrated left). The policewoman was wearing a police cap of sorts, something which looked like body armour and a pair of rather tired jeans.

Not helped by her also wearing a scarf as a mask, although I suppose that can be justified on grounds of health and safety. Don't suppose that they bother in the US for all that.

I am a firm believer in the theory that says sloppiness in dress leads to sloppiness in behaviour - a theory which the army certainly used to subscribe to - it even earning a précis in Švejk (pp166-167 in my Heinemann edition of 1973) - and I for one would have greater confidence in the Metropolitan Police shooting the right people for the right reasons if they were to dress properly.

I remember being similarly put out when a large proportion of the police turned out to check arrivals at Epsom Station for drugs one Friday evening were rather casually dressed. See reference 1.

PS: our flat was on the top floor of the back block. The flat to the immediate left of the tree, and with a good size garage which I used as a workshop under the front block. My bench was made from a beam recovered from some building being demolished, a beam which tapered from something 8 by 2½ to 5 by 2 in the course of its 12 feet. When we lived there, we had three or four busy butchers within a hundred yards and at least one baker. This last was another scruffy type and his bread was rather hit and miss - but good on a good day.

Reference 1: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=The+blair+witch+project. Once again, I find that my memory has geed the story up a bit - not very helpfully for the reputation of the police.