This play is exhausting. It is an absolutely relentless comedy. I don't mean a few scattered laughs, I mean a full-on assault on your comedy nerves. It starts as a high-energy farce and escalates and escalates and escalates until you can't trust your senses any more. If you're unfamiliar with the plot - as I was - it's a remake of a 1970s piece of agit-prop theatre in which the death of a suspect in police custody is investigated. The titular Anarchist died after falling from a 4th floor…
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This is the story of my encounter with our justice system. It's a personal post that doesn't necessarily reflect my employers' opinions. September 2017 - I was standing by a bus stop when I noticed a man playing with his phone while driving. So I snapped a couple of photos of him and his car. London's Metropolitan Police have an excellent, mobile friendly, web portal for reporting traffic incidents. www.met.police.uk/roadsafelondon/ I dutifully filled it in. There's no ability to add…
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The British State's desire for its citizens' private data is becoming unquenchable. As part of a minor act of disobedience, I decided to send two Freedom of Information requests. The first to the Home Secretary asking for her email metadata. The second to the Police and Crime Commissioner for Surrey asking for her web browsing history. After all, if they can spy on me, why can't I spy on how they're using their taxpayer-funded computers? Unsurprisingly, the Home Office rejected my request…
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Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) are the police who police the police. As the Police policers you'd expect their website to be copper-bottomed. That they would detect anything amiss when inspecting their thin blue links. Mind you, some web developers are a law unto themselves. Yeah, yeah, these puns are unbearable. Fine. Whatever. Amusing photo by kind permission of the inimitable Paul Clarke. As I was responsibly disclosing the flaw, the HMIC team were busy moving to a s…
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Imagine, just for a moment, you suspect that a friend of yours is a criminal. Perhaps they are running an illegal proxy, or hosting a search engine, or maybe criticising a dangerous cult, or even taking suspicious photographs. These are all - apparently - within the remit of The City Of London Police. Better report such heinous crimes to them. As a high-tech policing unit, they encourage you to report crimes online. The more astute of you will have noticed that the form is insecure. …
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This is a necropost - resurrected from the now defunct blog of a previous employer. I've just come back from an amazing BlueLightCamp 2014 - held in the splendid offices of the Ordnance Survey. Themed unconferences are nothing new - but I think this was one of the first that I've been to focussed on such a vital topic - the Emergency Services. You can read a full write up of all the sessions on the official blog, or you can read Ben Proctor's take on the day. Here are my scattered thoughts, …
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The BBC is reporting that the Government is so afraid of prisoners having access to concealed mobile phones, they want to introduce a ban. UK officials are considering banning the sale of small mobile phones designed to resemble car key fobs. A government spokesman told the BBC that it was discussing the issue with the National Trading Standards Board and the Serious Organised Crime Agency. It follows a report by the Times suggesting some of the Chinese-made products were being advertised…
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Surrey County Council have sent every household in the county a booklet explaining how our council tax is being spent. Within it is a highly political comment from Kevin Hurley, the newly elected Police and Crime Commissioner. He presents a pie chart showing how the police force spend its money. Take a look at it and ask yourself this question: what percentage is spent on "Employees". Please use this poll to record your guess - answers at the end of this blog. [polldaddy poll=6969136] …
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As I was driving to work today, I noticed I was being tailgated. The driver seemed distracted by some electronic gizmo and wasn't paying much attention to his surroundings. I started to take a note of the car's numberplate when all of a sudden the front grill exploded with flashing blue lights, a siren started howling, and the vehicle sped off. "Ah," I thought, "so that's what an unmarked police car looks like. I wonder if there's a way to tell if a car belongs to the police..." I suspect…
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Last year, I quickly created a blue-screen cut out of a strange photo of the police. Today, I was alerted to this rather lovely photo. Apparently, some 6 years ago, the police confiscated this "deadly martial arts weapon capable of decapitating a man." Well, I couldn't resist! Perhaps this can become one of my blog's traditions? So, here's a quick and dirty removal of the bluescreen. If I think of any more funny images, I'll stick them in this imgur gallery. …
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Terence Eden specialises in helping organisations craft amazing QR campaigns. Contact Terence for a consultation Wander around the London Underground and you're likely to see safety posters from the British Transport Police (BTP). This is the first one that I've seen with a QR code on it. It's a fairly good poster. A good call to action, a URL in case your phone can't read QR codes, and the code itself is well sized and has a high level of error correction. Scanning the code, however,…
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The journalist Shiv Malik took a rather intriguing photo at the recent student protests. It appears to show a group of police officers gathered around a blue box. No one seems to know what the box is for. I'm sure it's got a rather prosaic function - but that doesn't stop the speculation! As soon I saw it, I could think of only one thing; chroma-key! (Or Colour Separation Overlay if you're the BBC). It's more commonly known as "blue screen". It's the special effect which allows you to…
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