The book is a collection of posts from David Copperfield's blog. It is interesting to see that the people at the top have created ever-increasing paper trails to cover their fat arses in case of trouble, and that this has taken the place of actual policing. In common with most organisations, any person in charge of a department will seek to increase their power by increasing the number of staff they are responsible for, who will then, if all goes well, need their own management structure. The police support, have been very successful in this and now policemen in the UK are vastly outnumbered by clerks, secretaries, and other people more desirous of a corner cubicle than the beat on the street.

The author is a great admirer of American policing which gave me plenty to think about as I was not previously a fan of anything involving guns. The sheer brutality and humiliation shown on US tv of policing - arrest, handcuff, police cells for ... oh, a traffic offence, a little weed, shouting too loud in a bar, is just anathema to me. As the police are the other side of the criminal coin, Al Capone's famous quote applies equally to them:

"You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone." ( )

An astonishing insight into the life of the modern copper. Whilst it does seem a bit repetitive in its themes, repetitiveness seems to be the order of the day in the police force. Another job I definitely wouldn't fancy doing after reading this!

It's very very funny - my favourite bit was the checklist of things to do before having the police round. Also it's wonderfully un-PC (pun not intentional) with its comments about plasma screen TVs in the corners of council house living rooms, and the reference to overheating in such rooms (the sort of fuggy heat you 'only get when nobody is paying the heating bill'. Brilliant!) ( )