Police spotting (junction watch)

You shouldn't be alongside any vehicle. You're better waiting in the position that you would if you were in a car at red lights. Slinking to the left at lights is usually pointless and sometimes dangerous.

i think ed meant waiting in the queue, as if you were a car.

And that would have made it just pant wettingly funny, no doubt.

i did wet my pants but that is because i think i have syphillis.

And that would have made it just pant wettingly funny, no doubt.

Only if he was doing stand-up at the time

is it really necessary to focus so much on whether a gender-neutral pronoun was used or not? can't we just all laugh at fat people, together, regardless of vagoo or cock?

Well it depends on if you want people to be amused or not. The joke is funny if you say a fat plod, but by mentioning explicitly that she's female will cause the humour to be muted by peoples fear you are make a sexist joke not a fatist joke... Bizarely it's the doubt that stops people laughing, an overtly sexist joke will tend to get taken as a joke or irony...

Not that I know anything about jokes or standup. :)

is it really necessary to focus so much on whether a gender-neutral pronoun was used or not? can't we just all laugh at fat people, together, regardless of vagoo or cock?

I'm sure we could, but it would say more about us than about them. And not positive things.

The issue here isn't what's funny, or witty, or whatever, but discrimination. Before anyone tries to deflect that point by decrying 'political correctness', let me assure you that that's a completely separate issue and has no part to play here.

Discrimination is essentially blaming people for their weaknesses or perceived weaknesses and then victimising or disadvantaging them for it. What gets picked up on are usually highly visible weaknesses or perceived weaknesses, such as, in this case, being seriously overweight.

Quite often, a history of being bullied for such weaknesses or perceived weaknesses can be the source of confidence problems in a person, arising from a neglect of their less obvious personal strengths, which they then often don't get a chance to develop. Discrimination is nasty and can wreck lives and careers.

Obviously, this is 'only' an Internet forum, but that shouldn't stop us behaving with civility and dignity on it. Why not reserve judgement and, when the time comes, pick up on people's strengths? It's much more positive and more rewarding. 'Jokes' about people being 'fat' can be schoolboy sniggering at best.

The Golden Rule applies--you wouldn't want people to discriminate against you based on your weakness or perceived weakness, so don't do it to others.

What I found amusing was the idea of the officer on her mountain bike trying to chase down a courier. Having gone to all the effort of occupying 7 coppers' time for a day, you'd have thought they'd have put someone a bit more athletic on a better bike!

Bike officers are not primarily charged with 'chasing down' people. One of the main purposes of bike-based policing is a fast response time to the scene of a crime. Police also work in teams, and if someone needs chasing (which police are often reluctant to do owing to the resultant risk to the public), you can be sure that there will be officers in the squad capable of picking up the baton.

Yes Oliver it really would be terrible to make fun of people because their imperfections...

Low centre of gravity. :)

hoisted petard...

Yes Oliver it really would be terrible to make fun of people because their imperfections...

hoisted petard...

That's not an imperfection here--it's a strength in this case. Not hoisted on those grounds alone, and on the grounds that there was not a whiff of discrimination in banter among friends. Very different. :)

You shouldn't be alongside any vehicle. You're better waiting in the position that you would if you were in a car at red lights. Slinking to the left at lights is usually pointless and sometimes dangerous.

i think ed meant waiting in the queue, as if you were a car.

Exactly what Josh said.

New Oxford St; police officer poking his head out of a manhole cover. I had a brief chat with him. He usually works in the Fraud Squad but has been seconded to the new force of Underground Operatives or 'sewer cops' as they are colloquially known. The idea, as far as I could gather, is that he is able to observe road users behavior from his semi-subterranean vantage point without, as we would say here on the forum, being 'spotted'. He then radios his more fresh-air breathing colleagues and they nab the miscreants without them ever having the slightest clue as to how they were noticed RLJing.
So better keep your eyes down and if you see a manhole cover move even a little, behave!

Bike officers are not primarily charged with 'chasing down' people. One of the main purposes of bike-based policing is a fast response time to the scene of a crime. Police also work in teams, and if someone needs chasing (which police are often reluctant to do owing to the resultant risk to the public), you can be sure that there will be officers in the squad capable of picking up the baton.

That makes sense to me and I would agree that this is a sensible use of cops on bikes. Those I saw today though did seem set up to chase people down - the girl I mentioned was lurking in an alley out of sight and ready to go.

It was their dim plan which I originally found amusing:

having someone who didn't look the quickest, on a bike which was clearly not designed for speed, with the aim of chasing down people going through red lights in the middle of the day (probably couriers).

I wasn't 'laughing at a fat girl' as seems to have been assumed; she wasn't that big. Having someone slightly stocky just added to the overall impression of a daft plan.

New Oxford St; police officer poking his head out of a manhole cover. I had a brief chat with him. He usually works in the Fraud Squad but has been seconded to the new force of Underground Operatives or 'sewer cops' as they are colloquially known. The idea, as far as I could gather, is that he is able to observe road users behavior from his semi-subterranean vantage point without, as we would say here on the forum, being 'spotted'. He then radios his more fresh-air breathing colleagues and they nab the miscreants without them ever having the slightest clue as to how they were noticed RLJing.
So better keep your eyes down and if you see a manhole cover move even a little, behave!

That's not half as bad as the officers posing as stork chicks in stork nests, which admittedly are the best vantage point.

without them ever having the slightest clue as to how they were noticed RLJing.

i have always been curious, do you ever find a conflict between your cycle training side and couriering side? i.e. do you rlj, wrong way one way, etc.? or do you find there is no conflict?

'Jokes' about people being 'fat' can be schoolboy sniggering at best.

Where were you during the great 'hippy is fat' tag wars of 2008?

Oh.. http://www.lfgss.com/post781100-115.html

:P

schick has been dismantled.

New Oxford St; police officer poking his head out of a manhole cover. I had a brief chat with him. He usually works in the Fraud Squad but has been seconded to the new force of Underground Operatives or 'sewer cops' as they are colloquially known. The idea, as far as I could gather, is that he is able to observe road users behavior from his semi-subterranean vantage point without, as we would say here on the forum, being 'spotted'. He then radios his more fresh-air breathing colleagues and they nab the miscreants without them ever having the slightest clue as to how they were noticed RLJing.
So better keep your eyes down and if you see a manhole cover move even a little, behave!

Am i actually reading or has all the beer gone to my head? Sneaky fokkers trying to catch our money.

Discrimination is essentially blaming people for their weaknesses or perceived weaknesses and then victimising or disadvantaging them for it.

...

I think you can differentiate between discriminating against something someone has no control over - like race, and discriminating against something someone does have control over, like weight, or fashion choices. There are degrees of discrimination, it doesn't all fall under one category. It's human nature to discriminate to some extent, we all do it, even if we won't admit to it or try to avoid it.

This morning (15 July)

Caught two people while I was there for 2 mins. Fair do's to them I say.

Oh I didn't see them. I was waiting there on red though

I saw a lady pull one guy over, didnt look like he got a ticket though

Yep saw 'em but it was green.
I'm generally good there but I do notice that cyclists often try to cut ahead assuming that the main road will be green both ways. It's only green first for 30 seconds for traffic heading north though.

It's a nasty junction because of so many pedestrians. I don't advocate RLJing at all, but it annoys me when people do it there as, certainly traveling north to south, most RLJers end up cutting up peds on the opposite side of the junction when they get there.

I think you can differentiate between discriminating against something someone has no control over - like race, and discriminating against something someone does have control over, like weight, or fashion choices. There are degrees of discrimination, it doesn't all fall under one category. It's human nature to discriminate to some extent, we all do it, even if we won't admit to it or try to avoid it.

I agree with lpg, and disagree with Oliver on this.

Speaking from personal experience, when I was younger, at one point I was officially obese. Obviously people took the piss. So what I did was take something positive out of it, and sorted out my diet, got on a bike, and HTFUd. If people had been to scared to say anything I might still be a fat fucker now, rather than having a healthy weight.

Obviously there are exceptional cases, where people have a glandular issue, or a lack of mobility, where they can't do anything about it, but in general being overweight is just the question of the wrong diet, or lack of excercise, and I have little sympathy in that case.

I agree with lpg, and disagree with Oliver on this.

Speaking from personal experience, when I was younger, at one point I was officially obese. Obviously people took the piss. So what I did was take something positive out of it, and sorted out my diet, got on a bike, and HTFUd. If people had been to scared to say anything I might still be a fat fucker now, rather than having a healthy weight.

Obviously there are exceptional cases, where people have a glandular issue, or a lack of mobility, where they can't do anything about it, but in general being overweight is just the question of the wrong diet, or lack of excercise, and I have little sympathy in that case.

Does that make it ok to make digs at other people then?

So how do you know if the fat copperess, for example, has a gladular issue or not until after you insult her? Psychic ability?

I'm just asking, cos you seem pretty firm in your view, so you've obviously thought this through.

Forget it, you're labouring in vain. I'm not normally so conservative, but I will be liberal with my advice here.

Does that make it ok to make digs at other people then?

That depends. Shouting "you're a fatty fat fat" at some random person isn't really on, but spreading the attitude that being overweight is unhealthy, and therefore is a bad thing, (and the same goes for underweight) is generally a positive thing in my book.

I'm not saying I would say it directly to anyone (I'm generally too polite to make personal comments), but it worked for me.

So how do you know if the fat copperess, for example, has a gladular issue or not until after you insult her? Psychic ability?

I don't, and as above, I wouldn't say anything in the first place.

I'm not normally so conservative, but I will be liberal with my advice here.

Why do they call you Tory Blue Skully then?