Paul Routledge in the Mirror (not a permalink, sorry) offers a follow up to the “Bollocks to Blair” story covered here by Brian the other day:
“Getting fined worked,” he says. “I had only sold two before the police came. Once word got round, people took pity on me and everyone wanted one. I ended up selling 375.”
But more scarily…
The cops asked for the shirt seller’s eye colour, shoe size and National Insurance number to keep track of him “in case he reoffended”.
Once you know that, you know what the fuzz are up to – building a national database of people they don’t like.
Well that we knew. In fact the government is building a database of everybody just in case it might not like them – or might have some reason to ‘assist’ them personally (as a matter of ‘enabling’ a more ‘active citizenship,’ you understand) by telling them what to do – at any time in the future.
For myself I’m only surprised the cops did not take careful note of the brand of footware, and take his footprints for the national footprint database, which they have recently acquired the power to do – I kid you not. Or perhaps they did…
Shoe prints: I recollect tendering for some work on this (unfortunately unsuccessfully) at least 14 years ago. I hope that is now more history than secret.
Best regards
On a similar theme is this recent story from Londonist, where the writer’s friend was arrested and charged £80 for whispering that a police metal detector was a “piece of shit”.
http://www.londonist.com/archives/2006/07/opinion_freedom_1.php
All information gathered seems suspiciously like what the newly formed EU police force are asking member states for on anybody that might be an offender at any time.
My Mohammed being eaten by pigs
Snowstorm novelty paperweights
are not selling well at the moment.
Could getting nicked be the answer I wonder?
That or a nice public fatwa, RAB.
If we all started wearing Bozo-size shoes when wearing offensive T-shirts we could get the clown in all kinds of trouble.
A Fatwa!
Now your talking Guy!!
Better than an old fashioned Royal Charter!
I dont care what they do with them as long as they buy them. Have you seen the sales figures of Danish flags in the Muddle East lately?
I keep telling myself, as I did over twenty years ago when I left The Septic Isle , that it can’t possibly get any worse.
Wrong then……wrong now.
My practice of wearing 12Ws instead of the correct but more expensive 11-1/2EEs (US sizes) would then constitute concealment of my identity.
triticale,
Nah, wouldn’t that be more a personal ideosyncracy that would aid in identification?
If they want shoe sizes, why don’t they just measure the imprints left on their backsides?
How do they know what size metric is being used when you tell them your shoe size?
Rot13 is the only way to go. I can see a geek revival of t-shirts with “Obyybpxf gb Oynve” on the front (and perhaps a decoding key on the back for those, like me, that never acquired the ability to read it direct.
Seriously, could be a good “ironic” protest?
At the risk of sounding like that cynic, Euan Gray (whatever happened to him, BTW?) I suspect the police have been compiling lists of folk they dislike for years. What is new is how blatant and politically correct this is. When coppers were chasing after burglars, muggers and beating up stroppy coal miners, I doubt many people were bothered. What has changed is that police have become baked into the essence of the New Labour establishment.
I might wear my Front Sight(Link) firearms and security training establishment T-shirt and go for a stroll down the King’s Road later. Hiya constable!
This so reeks of that Monty Python episode where the whole way through they had to keep saying their show size to someone on the phone. Perhaps it is the police just being funny in their own little way.
Signed
Green-9.5-WL999999B
If Blair wants an imprint of my foot he only has to bend over and I will supply him one sharp to his pimply behind!
Of course, the resistanzista solution is to go supply this information to the police post voluntarily, while wearing colored contacts and shoes you don’t normally wear, in the wrong size!!!