Sunday

Thank you, Grandad.

 

Undoing Babel

“They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

Genesis 11:3-4

It was an ambitious plan, if a little short lived.

So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel — because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

Myth or not, here was the beginning of a multicultural world – demarcated byconfusion and dispersion. A world with multiple languages and multitudinous ways of doing things. Numerous cultural idiosyncracies. An abundance of races, religions, cults, sects, groups, clans, tribes, faiths, cliques, bands and units. A plethora of sensibilities. A buffet of global distinctions, divergences and discrepancies. A cornucopia of diversity and deviation. A festoon of departure, digression and dissent. A veritable feast of bamboozlement, perplexity and bafflement; a bewildering banquet of  mystifying mannerisms, incomprehensible idioms and puzzling protocols. A tangled web of twisted tales and scrambled stories.

Welcome to the modern world. It is no different. Only now we have the Great Cause, promoted by our political leaders, both seen and unseen:

… The mouthpiece of this generation? They are the knowing ones. The all-seeing eye. The builders of the tower. The ones to gather us in, and gather us up, and bring us all together. The uniting ones. The blenders. The stirrers of this melting pot. The ones with the plans; the blueprints; the designs for life. Our sentinels in their citadels. Our protectors in their watchtowers. Our role models and mentors. Chiefs and cardinals. Our captains and commanders. They know best. Nanny knows best. Come to us. We hold the keys to this city … (TVP Part II, p2)

Wherever you come from, whatever you believe, whichever way you hang your hat, you cannot escape this doom. The movers and shakers in this world have but one aim – to undo Babel. To rebuild the tower. To impose upon cultures an ideology diametrically opposed to their own belief system. To force feed the rest of us with notions of togetherness, harmony and peace, wherein races reunite under a banner of cohesion and like-mindedness. A multicultural society without fear, suspicion or aggrieved status – one that accepts, without question, and embraces without compunction. One that does the will of the masters. One that stands upon the pinnacle of greatness. One that makes a name for itself, unparalleled in the whole of history.

The results, as are far too obvious, are catastrophic.

Michael Pinkstone

 

Elastic Limit

“The maximum stress that can be applied to a metal without producing permanent deformation. When external forces act upon a material they tend to form internal stresses within it which cause deformation. If the stresses are not too great the material will return to its original shape and dimension when the external stress is removed.” (About.com:metals)

“Never give in! Never give in! Never, never, never, never — in nothing great or small, large or petty. Never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.” (Winston Churchill)

I’m sitting here in my 3rd floor “condo” overlooking a quiet suburban street lined with walnut, maple and Garry Oak trees. The walnut is directly opposite – sparsely populated with a few remaining yellow-green leaves, and several clusters of green walnuts hanging delicately on the furthermost branches, out of reach of the squirrels. They remind me of something private. As such, I have received several rebukes from my wife for referring to the walnut as “The Testicle Tree”.

To the left – and approximately 17 seconds away by foot - is the nearest pub. Not even in the UK did I live in such close proximity to a suitable watering hole. Even though it is busy and hugely popular, there have been no incidents of noise or disorder throughout the whole of the summer. No assaults, no “Section 5″, no flashing blue lights and wildly inaccurate sprays of CS.

In the fridge, several cans and bottles of beer are chilled to the bone. This includes the fearsome “Hermannator” – brewed locally and only at this time of year. A supremely smooth and delicious Ice Bock, the Hermannator is a stonking 9.5% ABV, which is probably why I didn’t sleep particularly well last night.

I then log on to the computer and peruse the morning “news”. My daily intake of chaos and disaster from across the world. Today I note that Mr Mcnulty has been “rebuked” (fuller story on Mr Gadget’s site). For those of you who don’t know, Mr Mcnulty smokes like a chimney, has hairy hands and can eat a whole Danish pastry in one go. I’ve had the dubious pleasure of witnessing this first hand. Little could I have conceived at the time that our former police minister was, in effect, a fucking thief. And there was me thinking that he just wanted to help. I lied in both of the previous sentences.

And finally, some of my regular readers may recall a now deleted post from last year entitled “Tin of Dreams”. Well, you will be absolutely delighted to know that the tin was opened and the money was all spent on essentials such as food, beer and immigration-based paperwork here in the New World. However, good things come to those who wait, and last Saturday my wife and I took ownership of a 50″ Samsung plasma. It’s been a year and a half coming, but oh my word is it better than a 22″ box with half of the colour spectrum missing.

A completely boring post, but there really isn’t anything new to write about. Nothing changes.

MP

Tales from Area 51: Memoirs of Policing Near London available in all good bookstores and online.

 

 

Quotes

This post is perhaps a bit self-eflagatory (I just made that word up), but after watching Baroness Warsi’s hideously pompaduffnory and gooberflubbergnostic performance on Question Time, I don’t actually care. Her scratchinosary “history” lesson was potentially the most umbergumbergobshitery thing I’ve seen in a long time. It truly was a load of picnicponysplastercrumpery bollocks. Anyway, at the risk of being splinterfruggled – which is a hugely portacrudpantiary experience – here are a few quotes from This Victorian Playground Part 1, which was written well over 2 and a half years ago, but is still – sadly – 100% accurate, with things still coming true all the time. I wouldn’t call myself a prophet – pieces of eight upon me – but who gives a tobagniosis?

Quote 1:

“I have not mentioned any political parties by name so far in this book. I do not need to. Everyone knows who the current Government is. If that Government was to change, this book would still be valid. Proposals for policing being made on both major sides of the political fence reek of incompetence. Then there are the insidious parties waiting in the wings. We all know who they are, and we perhaps know the gist of their manifestos. If the main political parties in this country think that they would never be under threat from their smaller and less-than-savoury opponents, they need to think again. As mentioned earlier, a general feeling of malcontent will lead some people to voting away from the norm, and thus increasing the influence and prominence of the extreme right wing. Owing to an imbalanced state of affairs in this country, people will turn to drastic measures to redress the balance. These drastic measures, however, will be ultimately destructive.”

Quote 2:

“Certain parties must never, ever be allowed to gain such prominence. It would lead to utter calamity.  The Government knows this. The Home Office isn’t completely blind, but it might as well be. It is one of the many, many reasons why there is such a focus on diversity and racism. It has led to some of the most incredible preventative measures imaginable. It has, in part, led us right to where we are now. It has led to this victim culture. This fantasy. This Victorian playground.”

Quote 3:

“Surely, no one can deny that throughout history, through the rise and fall of civilisations, both ancient and modern, that mankind has come across as anything but greedy, self-serving, aggressive, religiously twisted and socially ill-at-ease with anyone different. Anything but nice. When can we truly say that different nations have lived together in peace and harmony? When can we even begin to suggest that peoples of differing races have come together on a national scale and co-existed in a spirit of like-mindedness and cohesion? At the most basic and instinctive level, peoples stick together. They stick with what they know. They blend with those who are the same as them. It is the safest option. Not necessarily the right option, but the safe option.

While there is a lot to be valued in difference, there is also a great deal that should not be valued. Quite simply, cultures clash. They clash for very good reasons, sometimes. It would be foolish of anyone to suggest that every culture is civilised, forward thinking and embracing of everyone else. This is unheard of, both historically and contemporarily. Cultures are inherently protective of what they perceive to be their own identity. They will fight to defend their beliefs, practices and historical legacies. Therefore, any mixing of cultures will undoubtedly lead to a greater sense of protectiveness, because with the diffusion of races in any one place you have a distinct distillation of cultural identity.

 People then desperately try to maintain their perceived identity and this creates barriers of misunderstanding, mistrust and, quite often, anger. A difficult line is then drawn. If you have one culture that lives within the confines of another culture, how much freedom should they have with regards to their own identity? This is the crux of the matter, and one that really cannot be satisfactorily answered. It is one of the main reasons of current social unrest, and not just in Britain.”

And that’s it for the moment.

Please feel free to click on “My Books” for more information.

MP

 

Diversity Shapes

The “Islamahomotetrahedron”.

Webster’s: Fundamentally, a gay polyhedra composed of four triangular faces.

Properties

Can be folded from a single sheet of Public Satisfaction paper.

V = 1/3 Aoh (an Islamic incident is the area of a homophobic incident, multiplied by the height of the apex of Senior Management paranoia)

V = a . (b x c) / 6 (where a, b and c represent three strands of diversity that meet at one Public Confidence survey)

Any two opposite edges of a tetrahedron lie on two skew lines. If the closest pair of points between these two lines are points in the edges, they define the distance between the edges; otherwise, the distance between the edges equals that between one of the endpoints and the opposite edge (see Diversity Strategy Part XIV, paragraph 6, sub-section E.COL1.)

And at this point my brain has ceased to function.

One wonders at which point we will reach the logical conclusion of our own argument.

MP

Tales From Area 51 available to order online and in all good bookshops.

 

There And Back Again

As an extra special treat for my readers, please feel free to click on the below link (available online for a short time only) to hear me on BBC Radio Berkshire with Sarah Walker talking about teaching and policing. You’ll need to move the scroll bar across to 2:09.00 for the beginning of my slot. Happy listening.

Pinkstone with Sarah Walker: BBC Radio Berkshire; 14.10.09

MP

 

How Great Thou … Art?

Thanks to all who commented on my last post. I did respond to you all but ended up deleting the whole thing. It appeared that a few nefarious individuals were finding my site through what can only be described as unacceptable Google searches. I’d rather be discovered via the phrase “Pinkstone’s fantastic offerings”, for example, as opposed to random links between the words “sex”, “babies” and “bathtub”.

So, talking of paedophiles. Tate Modern have decided in their infinite wisdom to display a so-called “famous” image of a naked 10 year-old girl as part of a pornography exhibition.

I wonder what other quite frankly abhorrent decisions can – and undoubtedly will - be made in the name of “art”. Perhaps Mr Polanski will make a film about it or something.

Meanwhile, I woke this morning to discover that a Coronation Street actor has threatened to quit the soap if a storyline doesn’t go his way, which was important enough to overshadow news of a tsunami and an earthquake that have left hundreds, if not thousands, dead or buried alive.

Oh, how great thou art.

Now, because I am in an apocryphal frame of mind, here are 10 predictions concerning the future of the world. Unlike the occultist Nostradamus, I have not consulted arcane texts or summonsed ethereal beings to my locality using a complicated-looking tripod (especially not one bought from Argos during the January sale) and not a small amount of hallucinogenic substances.

Nay, instead I am sitting here in my “lounge pants” (please note the North American context of the word “pants” before you start making any unwarranted assumptions) and a slightly tatty but nonetheless robust Hook Norton Brewery T-shirt.

The time is 0925 hours, and this is what will happen:

1. Islam will merge with Catholicism to create an uber religion of unparallelled social, moral and ethical influence. This will usher in what is known as The Last Days.

2. Under laws implied by Gordon Brown, but later implemented by David Cameron’s successor’s successor’s successor, parents of children who commit crimes – including urban antagonism – will be severely punished. In some cases children will make judicial style decisions regarding their parents if they have been victims of crime at their hands. This will constitute a literal and allegorical fulfilment of the final part of Matthew 10:21 – “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death.”

3. Petrol will cost £5.79 a litre by the time my son is old enough to drive. Mind you, if he ever moves to a sink estate near Doncaster he might consider himself old enough already.

4. You will be able to buy Walkers “Infidel” flavour crisps, courtesy of the Heathen Re-purposing Program. See point 1.

5. Sex and alcohol will only be available on prescription.

6. Police will respond to “Thought Crimes” and record them as such.

7. England’s new National Day (inaugurated in 2066) will consist of a vodka drinking competition whilst eating leftover sweets from the Hindu festival of Diwali. This won’t last long. See point 1.

8. Ugliness will become the 7th strand of diversity.

9. Unemployment will go through the roof. This will be recorded as “Criminal Damage to Personal Property”.

10. None of the above.

Thankyou for taking the time to consider my proposals. Answers on a postcard by next Wednesday.

Michael Pinkstone

Tales from Area 51: Memoirs of policing near London available to order online or from any good bookstore nationwide.

 

Echoes of Bulger

Two brothers (aged 10 and 11 at the time of the offence) have pleaded guilty to inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent on two other boys aged 9 and 11.

The attack involved acts of torture, sexual incitement and threats to kill.

It would be difficult not to draw parallels with the murder of James Bulger in 1993 – news that horrified a country and forever permeated the national consciousness.

I was doing my A-levels at the time – one of the subjects being Media Studies. Such was the level of “interest” in the case, that the final exam was re-written to include a discussion on censorship, a debate on “Child’s Play 3″, and other media influences that could have possibly played a part in the decision that two young boys made to maim and murder a child.

Everyone was talking about it.

The situation of the two young boys in South Yorkshire who committed similar atrocities in April this year - although fortunately not leading to murder - is no less disturbing.

However, the frenzy simply doesn’t appear to be here. It’s just another story for us to shake our heads at and sigh numbly. Perhaps, after the Bulger case, we are no longer surprised.

In a rather typically weak, “It’s Got To Be The Fault Of A Service”, “Doncaster Council said a serious case review was now under way to establish if there are lessons to be learned by any agency involved”.

And what agencies would those be?

“The Heinous Crime Committed By Children Prevention Panel”?

“Blindfolds And Ear Muffs For Tots Action Group So That They Can’t See Or Hear Anything Bad That Will Turn Them Into Murderers Before They Take Their SATS”?

“Sticking A Cigarette Into An Open Wound Is A Naughty Thing To Do To Someone Advisory Committee”? (In light of this, perhaps a whole load of new books will be made available in the primary teaching sector. Forget “Badger’s Parting Gift” – how about “Badger Tortured His Friend And Missed Five Minutes Of Lunch Break”.) That should do the trick. After all, these kids have to know that there will be consequences to attempted murder and sexual abuse.

Then, of course, you have the obvious choices:

“The Police”.

“Social Services”.

I’m sure the subsequent Review will be lengthy, costly, soul-searching and slightly damning in a generic sense. Social Services could have done more. And the police – bless their hearts – they will have already conducted a hasty and thorough review of every dealing they have ever had with the families involved – all of them. And the friends of the families, and the friends of the friends. Every Log, every “Crime Report”, every “Non-Incident” will be scrutinised, pored over, double-checked and … well, if no one specific is to blame, hallelujah. If any concerns were raised on the street, let’s hope to goodness that those same concerns were typed into a computer database, so that they could be monitored by someone else, so that it could be referred to someone else (who Noted It) and then made a further referral to another someone else, who duly Noted It and passed on the concerns to another person who made a note somewhere on a system and updated it on a number of occasions (at the very least updating it for the sake of ensuring that it had been updated, even though the updates were, in effect, an update by themselves irrespective of the content, therefore being classed as Non-Updates in the sense that they didn’t actually update anything, except the system itself, which was updated by the very fact it had been updated. With nothing …) and on it goes.

Perhaps if the virtual paper trail was comprehensively updated enough, and everyone showed sufficient concern, no one will find themselves without a head on their shoulders.

Meanwhile, what on earth would lead two young children to inflict such horror on kids the same age?

Now, where’s my copy of Child’s Play 3. Surely the answer lies within.

Michael Pinkstone

Tales From Area 51 now available to order online and from bookshops nationwide

 

Thames Valley Police

AKA

This Victorian Playground.

It was a rather odd five years, to say the least.

At the risk of sounding big-headed, one of the first things my Sergeant said to me when I joined Thames Valley in early 2004, was, “Pinkstone – you’re far too intelligent for this job.”

Probably one of the nicest compliments I’ve ever been paid, although it was a slightly worrying one.

Anyway, I enjoyed working for Thames Valley Police, believe it or not. There remains no particular axe to grind. The small amount of “gossip” I already know, or could easily lay my hands on even from here, would be nothing more than cheap, tabloid nonsense. I’d much prefer to remove the pea from the whistle and smear it like a giant bogey on a Citizen Focus Chart, than blow the whistle in the first place. Who cares about the odd skin blemish when the chaos has already consumed the soul?

TVP is no different to any other large organisation, police or otherwise. Like all institutions obeying orders from above, it is little more than a bright and shiny button on the great dinner jacket of Government – a mere token of political desire to look and sound precious. The “official line” is the equivalent of lime green – quite simply ghastly.

Thames Valley covers a vast and diverse area of ground. And my remit, for five years, was to mollycoddle chavs in a particularly delightful town near Heathrow on the eastern periphery of the TVP footprint. In May I made good my escape and said farewell to those dear colleagues who continue to piss against the wind on the streets of shame.

Thus it would have been extremely rude of me to depart the UK without leaving something for my ex colleagues - a small ray of hope in an otherwise endless sea of poo. And what better way to immortalise the key events of the past few years than with a good, old-fashioned paperback. Thanks to Discovered Authors for leaping on my manuscript and sealing the deal.

Tales From Area 51 is being released in the UK on 28th August, with a US release to follow. More about that later on in the year.

So, if you want the shocking inside truth, read something else.  Aside from that, I’m giving you no more clues as to the content. Perhaps you’ll just have to shun the Crunch and buy it.

 And that’s it. I’ve finished writing books about the police in Britiain.

Yet one wonders whether the best has been saved until last …

 

 Michael Pinkstone

Tales from Area 51 - pre-order now from Amazon, or from any good bookstore

This Victorian Playground Part I - order now from Amazon, or from any good bookstore

This Victorian Playground Part II - order now from Amazon, or from any good bookstore

 

Self Harm

There is nothing quite like waking up at 6am to the sound of your wife stabbing cornflakes in the kitchen with a spatula.

I can’t say this has ever happened before, but it was certainly the case last week.

As I lay there draped in what my younger brother fondly refers to as the “L-Shaped Sheet”, I wondered what on earth would drive someone to carrying out such an extraordinary activity.

And then I remembered. We were off up Island to Port Alberni for the fabled Long Weekend: a gathering of Kinsmen and their families for a few days of drunken debauchery, death-defying river stunts and succulent pig roasts.

Believing, as I did, that this weekend would involve some quite serious white water rafting, I was preparing myself physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually in ways that only the mind of a guru could comprehend. I had aligned my protons, balanced my neutrons and composed my electrons. In other words, my wife had arranged for my mother-in-law to lend me an inner tube, and I had a slab of Wildcat Stong Lager in the “trunk”. That’s about all the preparation you need in Canada. For anything.

An inflatable device and some booze.

So, as Mrs P. continued her early morning destruction of my ninth favourite breakfast cereal (muesli is currently at the Number Four Spot, if you are at all interested), I clambered out of bed and carried out my traditional waking ritual – something I have done every day since I first became aware of Dust - in a Pullman sense. Nothing to do with household cleaning.

I looked in the mirror to check for blemishes, had a little tinkle, popped on a T-shirt, and went back to bed for an hour, before getting up again.

Meanwhile, my wife had managed to crush the cornflakes into something resembling a radioactive orange powder, and she set about basting the chicken legs with Miracle Whip.

Suddenly, with an anguished look on her face, and a drumstick rasied above the mixing bowl, she cried, “What about Thirsty? We can’t leave him here to die!”

Cue me.

With a cool swagger I entered the kitchen - my long, white British legs like matchsticks dipped in fluff, and I calmly stated that I would sort it out. There was no need to worry about Thirsty when I was around.

Covering the bottom half of my body with a suitable garment, so as not to make passing residents vomit onto the plastic lids of their ubiquitous mocha-chocha thingamajigs, I went out onto the balcony to survey Thirsty: The Extremely Needy Herb Plant. Not only does Thirsty consume eighteen gallons of water a day, he is also mayor of a small town in the Czech Republic.

“Hmm,” I said to myself, as I looked underneath the plant pot. “I need to make some holes in that.”

My intention was to create, in less than ten minutes, a self-watering system for Thirsty, utilising a Mott’s Clamato Juice bottle and a lasagne roasting tray.

Entering the kitchen again, with a purposeful gait, I took up my weapon of choice: a ten inch kitchen knife scheduled for destruction because it was simply too big to fit in the knife block. I thought I would allow it a swansong before rejecting it forever.

“What are you doing with that?” asked my wife innocently, shaking various ingredients into the cornflake dust.

“Oh … nothing,” I replied hurriedly, walking out of the kitchen before I had a chance to explain.

Then, with reckless abandon, I thrust the knife several times into the bottom of the plant pot, creating lots of lovely holes for the water to osmify through and disseminate into the rootal carapace. I may have just made some words up.

Placing the pot into the lasagne roasting tray, I contemplated my next task – creating a self-watering system for the tray with an upturned plastic bottle with holes in its neck. A superb idea, and one which would make my wife happy. She has a peculiar fondness for Thirsty. I just think he’s a greedy little beggar.

Anyway, so I went back into the kitchen, which my wife had now vacated, and started stabbing the neck of the plastic bottle with the knife.

In hindsight … I won’t be doing this again.

Ever.

In five years of policing I incurred a broken ankle, several major cuts, some torn ligaments, numerous bumps and bruises and a telling-off for turning on a siren at 5am. Other than that, I emerged relatively unscathed.

Now here, in my New World kitchen, I was about to explore a whole, er, new world of pain.

With a particularly awesome downward thrust, I gave the bottle neck one good, last plunge with my soon-to-be-retiring knife, and watched, horrified, as the fearsome blade glanced off the thick plastic rim and buried deep into my left hand between my thumb and forefinger.

Dropping the knife in abject horror, I looked down in disbelief and saw … well, it was a hole in my hand. Fascination very soon gave way to nausea, and a lot of blood.

From the bedroom, my wife called out.

“Sweetheart?” she said. “Have you packed enough underpants?”

“My love,” I said faintly. “I’ve just stabbed myself.”

Running into the kitchen and staring at her husband draped over the sink and lavishly spurting blood everywhere was not on my wife’s list of morning duties, but she adjusted pretty quickly and soon I was lying on my back with my hand in the air, trying to remember my First Aid course from four months ago, and whether nasty stab injuries were fixable in about ten minutes, which was about as much time as we had before our scheduled departure.

Soon enough, my wife was on the phone to pretty much everyone. Conversations went as follows:

“Hi, mum, yes it’s me. No, no. Everything’s fine. We’re going to be a bit late … Mike’s had an accident.”

“Hi, Jim, it’s me … oh, you’ve heard? Yes I know! What a doofus! What? Oh, he’s just lying on the balcony bleeding into a tea-towel. Yeah, I’ll take him to the walk-in clinic when he’s coherent.”

“Hello Lisa, yeah … yeah I guess you’ve already heard! Thought so! Yes it’s a terrible wound. Yes, the chicken came out fine … who’d have thought that crushed cornflakes, herbs and Miracle Whip would kick the ass out of KFC?”

And so on.

After that I was stitched up, both physically and metaphorically, and managed to drive all the way up to Port Alberni without any further incidents of self harm.

It’s a beautiful island. You should visit. Just don’t ask me for a Caesar. I’ve gone right off Mott’s Clamato Juice.

Michael Pinkstone