Watching the Detectives.

I may have mantioned before that I'm somewhat in agreement with Jeremy Clarkson that if you have been burgled, the police can't get you for any motoring offences until they've solved your crime first. If only!

Certainly in London, and I suspect most other places in the UK, if you get burgled you can forget any idea of the perputrators being caught. Last time we were burgled they took Marjs' car. After 6 months the police had failed to find it, despite the fact it was sat on a public road unmoving since the day it was taken. It was eventually discovered by The DVLA 48 hours after the tax ran out which explains a great deal about the art of "detection" around here these days.

Once upon a time the glamorous "copper" was The Detective. He would be faced with a crime and would gnaw away at the details until, using little more that his "Coppers Nose" and the odd hunch, he would track down and arrest the guilty party. Now, I suspect, little real Detection goes on. I still can't go into details about a case we're involved with as it is still sub-judice, but I can tell you that at the original incident, Police failed to find any witnesses whereas we were able to give them 6 seperate names and adresses within 48 hours by going out and asking a few questions. I wonder how Sherlock Holmes would have operated these days......

WATSON: So Holmes, what crime did you solve today.

HOLMES: Ah, My dear Watson, I like to think of it as The Sound of The Baskervilles.

WATSON: Why, what do you mean?

HOLMES: I was walking along to my local opium den when I spotted a road with, and be prepared for a terrible shock Watson, no speed camera for almost 400 yeards!

(Watson screams, and lies down upon the chaise longue with an attack of the vapours.)

HOLMES: Almost immediately I recognised the engine sound of a 1996 Ford Orion with the note pitched perfectly on D#. As you may well know, at 30 mph the engine should have been no higher than C#! I immediately threw myself in front of the car which, upon it's finally stopping some 15 feet after it had run me over, I bound to the drivers door and arrested it's owner, a Mr J Baskerville, for driving at 34mph in a 30 mph zone. I hied both myself and the miscreant straight to Scotland Yard and thus another dangerous criminal has been dealt the severe punishment of 3 points on his licence and a £50 fine. Indeed Watson, fetch me my Stradivarius violin and I shall re-enact the very notation that caused me to apprehend the aformentioned felon.

WATSON: I'm sorry Holmes, during your abscence you were burgled.

HOLMES: Oh, Bugger!