Saturday, 30 August 2014

Crime, fear of crime and CCTV for comfort



30 August

Here I sat playing on me ‘puter when I had a visitor to our back door. She had come to ask if I had seen anyone at the drying area about 15’ from the door. Well, I hadn’t, just like the last time when someone smashed the gnome. This lady had hung some sheets out to dry and they had gone missing. Kath, the lady who lives in the flat below her had also had all her washing go missing. Now here’s how close the area is to our back door … 

As you can see it’s very close. But once I’m on here and got my head into doing something on line here, I’m not aware of anything going on outside.

We always have that door open so there’s a nice flow of fresh air into here. This is fine when we are both here but we are re-thinking the idea of leaving it open when Jan is out. That lappy you can see above is Jan’s and that’s where she sits in home. If I’m as unaware as I am normally on my ‘puter, then that lappy is all too easy to nick. Jan’s camera is usually sitting there beside her too. As it was, the washing hadn’t been nicked; no, another lady had taken it in when it started raining.

That made me feel somewhat better, but we still feel that if it’s that easy to remove things without me seeing them, then it’s far too easy for any valuables to go missing. As it is we have a CCTV system ready to be put up and we are going to do that this weekend. It might just scare people off, but if not, then we should have a record of who is about anyway.

We were lucky this time, nothing was taken so no crime committed. But the fear of crime is one of biggest problems that we face. On Wednesday evening I was speaking to a guy who lives across the street. He came over to speak to us as we arrived home. He told me that he had had £3500 worth of tools stolen out of his van. As a self-employed tradesman, his livelihood is not at risk. But even more of a worry for him is since then he isn’t sleeping very well. He’s up out of bed and looking out the window at every sound out on the street. That is not doing either him or his wife any good. See, it’s the fear of crime that hurts.

I can just about remember the tram service in Coventry; I do remember the lines that were in Bed’th though. New tram services are being installed all over the place. Last year when I was in Edinburgh I saw that there was one being installed there too, even though there is no need, or call for one. Princes Street was in a hell of mess because of it. But it was on this day that the first tram service was started in 1860. That service was started in Birkenhead.

And so time for a photo … 

A twisted tree in Holy Trinity church yard, Strafford. All I’ve done with this one is to convert to mono and boost the contrast a wee bit. I think it’s one of the best shots I’ve done for some time now.

Today’s funny …

Paul walks into the boss’s office. “Sir, let me get straight to the point, I know the economy is really down, but I have a couple of companies after me, and I would like to ask for a raise.” After a few minutes of haggling between them the boss finally agrees to a 10% raise, and Paul  gets up to leave happily.   “One minute”, says the boss to Paul , “which  companies are after you by the way?” “The gas company, cable company, and phone company”, Paul replied!       

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