One of the “High Wycombe Two” has been released on appeal. He’s had his sentence reduced to 12 months (which is still 12 months too long) but suspended for two years, which is two years too long too. His brother is still inside though, but his absolutely ridiculous 39 months has been reduced to a just-as-absurd two years.
But the final (at least in the short-term) words must go to Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson. Now as you know if you have been following my outpourings for any length of time, there is no love lost between me and the Met, but I think that Stephenson’s words deserve full attention. He said that “people who put themselves in danger to tackle criminals should be celebrated as heroes. Courageous members of the public make our society worthwhile“. Now that statement is giving out a clear message to three groups of people – firstly the victims, who now seem (in Greater London anyway) to have some sort of licence from the police to beat villains to a pulp, secondly to the villains, that the victims are likely to beat them to a pulp with police encouragement, but thirdly, and most importantly, to the Judges. “Up yours, m’lud”.
In other news, I turned the place upside down this morning and found one of the missing papers. And so I went chaud-pied down to Pionsat to post my parcels of unwanted electrical goods. They are doing no good around here and I might shame the various suppliers into replacing them. It’s worth a try.
When I got back Liz called me and we had a mega-discussion about our forthcoming radio programmes. While she was on the phone Terry turned up – he’d been to Brico-Depot – and we had a chat about our future income-generating projects. And as I am in the middle of a culinary crisis (I’ve run out of vegan christmas cake) I tried my best to stimulate him into needing a helping hand round at his house. You never know – Liz might be baking!
Terry had also developed a flat tyre on his van so we had a tyre-changing session. He has 16″ wheels (Caliburn’s are 15″) and you’ve no idea how heavy they are. And I dunno who fastened his wheels on last time but I wouldn’t like to meet him up a dark alley late at night – it took a power bar and a long length of pipe to free the nuts off.
After Terry had gone I started work on the last bits of the studding for the false wall in the bedroom. And when it got too dark to work up there any more I glanced at the time – 17:58. Yes, the days are definitely lengthening.
And following my crowing about the weather last night, I was woken up at 04:00 this morning by a torrential rainstorm. Serve me right! But today was another good solar day and my batteries are fully-charged.
