Bloody coppers!

Fuck me it's been a bloody long week!!

The week started with a 6am start to head off to Gloucester University for the annual police vice conference, where I spent the next two days surrounded by several hundred policeman - lots of whom were fit, fit, fit - all of whom were married! Not that that would have stopped many of them playing away mind!! It's quite remarkable the cultural undercurrent that is apparent when you have large groups of policeman, away from home, work, and also under the influence.

Accommodation was in the student halls (now vacated of students) and was sparse, to say the least, and the food was shit, but the conference material was pretty good, and definitely worth attending.

I managed to avoid any dodgy situations during the evening "entertainment", (which consisted of some retired copper and a couple of women "singing" irish/scottish styley tunes), by refusing the vast amount of drinks offered to me that would have most certainly led to regretful situations!

Alas, not all my colleagues were quite so well behaved, and I was a little shocked, on getting back to my room at 2am to find a note from my local police Area Commander, a fairly pleasant but unattractive middle aged man (who I had met for the first time that day, and will need to work with in partnership in the future)pushed under my door saying:

Sorry if I am a bit forward but circs did not allow 4 further
conversation. I am next door ie. 302 if U wish 2 finish conversation. PC Plod.

What the fuck!!!!?? Yeah, right. As if I possibly would!!!

Unfortunately, I then made the really, really stupid mistake of showing it to the 3 other (at the time all drunken and particularly boyish) police that I was with (2 local, 1 from elsewhere), and then the even more stupid mistake of leaving it with them whilst I nipped down for a fag!!!

Fortunately, the 'evidence' was returned to me the next morning, (after much winding up and teasing about writing on it and putting it back under PC Plod's door from said coppers), and it was not mentioned in the presence of PC Plod for the entire day. There also wasn't much other conversation between myself and him, perhaps unsurprisingly! Bloody idiot!

I can appreciate the funny side of it now, and probably would have done so even more if I hadn't been so dumb as to leave the note with them and then have to worry that they had done something stupid with it, but actually I was also really offended that a professional would put another professional (ie. me!) in such a situation, not to mention quite worried about it being plastered all over the local police station and me looking like the bad guy! Stupid things like that can have really big consequences, particularly in partnership working!

Bloody police!