STOP PICKING ON THE STASI

The Stasi have been getting a bad press lately, especially in readers’ comments in The Guardian. They’re all, ooh, I got fined for feeding the ducks, the British police are turning into the Stasi. The Bitish police are photographing enemies of the party just like in East Germany.

This is absurd. As well as suppressing dissidents, the Stasi also suppressed wrongdoers and bad apples. They did some fine police work. Life in DDR wasn’t many laughs, but it was safe to walk the streets.

Say what you like about police states, but they do at least have low crime rates.

In Britain we have managed to combine Singaporean levels of mindless niggling harassment with South American levels of crime.

-“Help! Police! There’s an intruder in my house.”

-I’m sorry, we’d love to help. But all our officers are cunting around in a field in Wiltshire, talking photos of some hippies.”

That’s a word-for-word transcript of a conversation I had with them last week. I’m just glad I don’t pay my taxes.



Some bad apples recently.

I was cycling round London the other day when I noticed that someone has built a hulking great wheel by the Thames, right opposite parliament. Seriously, what will those arseholes think of next? Look out for it, next time you’re in London. It's right next to County Hall. You can’t miss it.

Is a huge wheel supposed to inspire us, or cheer us up? I never heard such nonsense.

Future archeologists will no doubt lump it with Stonehenge, Avebury and the chalk horses, as having some kind of cultural or religious importance. No one will guess that it signifies absolutely bugger all.

LITTLE VICTORIES

"A council today defended its decision to fine a young mother £75 for feeding bread to birds while visiting a park's duck pond with her 17-month-old son."

Man, I would love nothing more than for a warden with no powers of arrest to try to fine me. The sheer joy of taunting such a person would put me in a good mood for the rest of the day. If I could taunt a smoking inspector as well, sleep with the Russian women’s gymnastics team, punch Tony Blair on his ears and eat dim sum, all at the same time, that would be the perfect way to spend an afternoon.

I was on my bike in Hyde Park a couple of months ago and one of Blunkett’s scruffy twat-style police officers shouted at me that there was a £200 fine for not sticking to the cycle path. But she was on foot, and I was on a bike, so I just kept right on going. Didn’t even speed up. My spirits soared when I thought of the impotent rage she must have felt.

I even woke up in the middle of the night and felt a wave of euphoria as I remembered my victory. I jumped out of bed and punched the air in triumph, shouting, “Yes! Yes! One-nil!”

IRONY CAN BE PRETTY IRONIC SOMETIMES

The head of the Campaign for a Safe Caracas has been shot dead in Caracas.

Earlier this year, a team from National Geographic was in Colombia making a film about the country’s “secure highways” initiative. It almost goes without saying that they got carjacked.

Apart from getting robbed blind by its thieving inhabitants, the journalists found Colombia to be a country marvellous for its peoples, its customs, its festivals and its landscapes, the article says.

KILLER FACT!

Smokers die younger than oak trees.

ALL TOBACCONISTS ARE FASCISTS

Just went through the leaked BNP membership list to check if my local tobacconist was on it. He wasn't, but I came across this guy:

Rev John Stanton
Rochford
Essex
Activist. Ex-Conservative and then Lib-Dem councillor, ex-chairman of local Green Party and UKIP member. Minister of Religion. Cert. Ed. Hobbies: steam railways

There are apparently eleven BNP members in my constituency, including four student documentary-makers, two undercover reporters, one police spy, two anti-fascist campaigners, and two actual fascists.

Via Old H