Crime and Punishment in the Capital
So, I become a crime stat for the second time in my many years in the capital. My weekend goes swimmingly until precisely 10.30pm last night when I realise I have a ‘Police note’ dropped inside my car. Uh-oh. My heart sinks. Further inspection reveals a nice 2-inch gap prised between passenger door and body of car. ‘Attempted break in’. Arghhhhh…..not again…
Policemen two come round to visit me this a.m.
Am visibly routine and nonchalent, expectant now of this type of petty crime. Invite officers over the threshold to perform the mandatory ‘statement taking’ (it takes two of them these days); but shocked that police standards have slipped so much these days that they actually dare to SIT DOWN WITHOUT being asked! – I mean, did you EVER? Shocking!
Boringly feel like am having déja-vu after we discuss the circumstances of the ‘crime’. Neds. Ne’erdowells. ‘Just kids’. But am somewhat surprised when Officer 1 summarises in a bored tone: “Well, you know what you’ve got to do – MOVE OUT!” Yes, the thought had crossed my mind, too. No point in making the streets safer, striving hard to make our communities feel like safe places, being tough on tracking down crime, or whatever else the police used to do before they visited and beseated themselves in other people’s flats of a morning while it’s raining outside, etc, etc, etc. No – that’s the official police advice now: if you don’t like the crime – JUST MOVE OUT! So simple. Yep. You heard it here first.
Criminal justice thoughts: So, as should be plain from the title of this blog post, I start to rant in my own internal thoughts about the unfairness of Crime and Punishment. For it seems I have been delivered both. I get the Crime (broken, damaged car), AND I get to suffer the Punishment (move out of the house I had comfortably got settled in, at huge expense and inconvenience to me, blah-blah-blah…) Hmm…! Where’s the fairness and justice there, one wonders….
After not sleeping much last night, naturally, while decrying petty crime and pre-pubescent criminals (what were they: high on Irn-Bru?), feel lightheaded and sleepy come dinner prep time. So much so that I try to open a tin of tomatoes with a nutcracker. Great. Crime drives the innocent insane!
The CCF (Carer-cum-Fiancé), seeing my malady, jumps to his feet and sneakily puts the kettle on. “What are you doing?” I suspect of him.
“Nothing.”
He brings over a bowl of what looks like steaming boiled water in a bowl.
“There – it’s a hot flannel to put over your face – you look like you need it,” he says with care.
“That’s a floor cloth.” I point out. “I’m not putting a floor cloth on my face.”
Comfort food of lasagne washed down with a litre of cooking wine seems like the only option at this late stage.
🙁
Annie