Lets Be Having You

For someone who has never robbed a bank or killed a person, I seem to spend an awful lot of time explaining myself to the police.  


Last night, I was on my way to a girlfriend's house because she has recently had a knee operation and so can't walk. More to the point,  she can't dance on the tables at nightclubs either, so we decided to spend our Saturday night at home eating pizza and watching a rerun of the Golden Globe awards. My girlfriend lives in the suburbs (everyone has their faults) so I packed an emergency survival kit and headed out of London to see her. I had got no further than two streets from my home, when I saw the oh-so-familiar blue lights flashing behind me.  At the time - and I'm not proud of this - I was programming my GPS with my left hand, texting her for the address with my right hand, and steering with my knees. 


"Do you know why I've pulled you over?" the policeman asked.


"No", I replied, because innocent until proven guilty.


"I've pulled you over because you've got no lights on" he explained.


"Oh fab!" I shrieked, understandably delighted at having got away with the whole dangerous driving thing, but causing the policeman to surmise I must be drunk. 


"What have you been doing for the last hour or so?" he asked me, and I answered as honestly and thoroughly as I could that I'd fed my dog, vacuumed the stairs, re-arranged my cookbooks, had a shower, changed into my pyjamas and left the house. 


It didn't take Sherlock Holmes to see I was telling the truth because I was standing there in my pyjamas with wet hair and a dog. But this policeman didn't seem to read those telltale signs and so asked outright if I'd been drinking, which caught me somewhat off guard because who drinks in the shower?


He explained that one of the most common things people do when they're drunk was to forget to turn their lights on. I thought of telling him that the most common thing most people I know do when drunk is have wild sex with work colleagues, but I decided against it.


Eventually, I convinced him that I was stone cold sober and crime-free, other than being a little casually dressed for a Saturday night, and he let me continue my journey. 


Hardly more than 12 hours later, I found myself face to face with one of his colleagues in Holland Park this morning.  Holland Park is a beautiful space and has many things going for it, including wooded areas, tennis courts, wild peacocks and a Marco Pierre White restaurant. On the downside, they don't allow dogs off lead. Possibly this is to prevent dogs running onto the tennis courts, possibly to prevent them attacking the wild peacocks, possibly to prevent them attacking Marco Pierre White. Who knows. But the point is, your dog has to stay on the lead.


Now, if you consider that I am someone who doesn't comply with the 'No Texting While Driving' rule, how much attention do you think I pay to the 'No Dogs Off Lead' rule? 


Precisely. 


So, there are me and my dog Dorothy -  me happily walking around the park and Dorothy happily running amok chasing the peacocks - when a policeman walks around the corner, closely followed by the chip on his shoulder. He took out his notebook and pencil in a very official manner, seemingly in an effort to make me feel intimidated but actually having no effect on me whatsoever because I've got loads of notebooks and pencils at home and don't find them intimidating in the least. 


He proceeded to ask me where I had been that morning. All this interaction with the local constabulary, who's first question always seems to be what I've been doing for the last hour, caused me to consider popping a daily timesheet through the letterbox of the police station every morning, so as to save us all some time. I've had pathologically jealous boyfriends who needed less information on my whereabouts. 


However, I answered as thoroughly as possible that I had read the New York Times on my iPad in bed, had a shower, eaten breakfast (tea and a bacon sandwich, ketchup on the side), walked the dog through Hyde Park and  was now on my way home.  And I was thoughtful enough to speak slowly so as to give him enough time to write it all down on his nice little pad.


Despite me being so helpful, he issued me with a written warning anyway. Although I should point out that I had no I.D. on me at the time so I'd be lying if I said the idea of giving him a false name and address didn't cross my mind.




Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I wasn't in the wrong to have Dorothy off lead. Clearly I was. I just can't believe that one cocker spaniel loose in the middle of a park is the biggest problem facing London's Metropolitan Police force and the best use of this policeman's time.  


Or, for that matter, his notepad.