The true colour of copper is the deepest shade of blue.
As Gilbert & Sullivan wrote in ‘The Pirates of Penzanes’, it is not easy wearing blue:
‘When a felon’s not engaged in his employment –
Or maturing his felonious little plans –
His capacity for innocent enjoyment –
Is just as great as any honest man’s –
Our feelings we with difficulty smother –
When constabulary duty’s to be done –
Ah, take one consideration with another –
A policeman’s lot is not a happy one.’
I’m sure that the sentiment expressed here is a universal one but in Bangkok it seems that policemen are having an even harder time of it than their colleagues elsewhere.
So much so that their superiors have come up with the following strategy:
More than 1,000 Bangkok traffic policemen are currently receiving laughing lessons in order to ease the stress of working on the dirty streets of the capital.
The Laughing Project aims to restore and improve their mental and physical health, by teaching the policemen and wonmen to laugh using different parts of the body.
In the two-hour therapy sessions, participants are taught how to laugh from their face, their head, their fingers and how to use their diaphragms to have a good chortle.
It is, of course, easy to see how policemen can become quite depressed. Especially since they have to deal with all kinds of antisocial idiots on a daily basis.
Therapists earn good wages from the fact that most people need to be in a relationship as much as a pyromaniac needs a Zippo.
The police though are always first on the scene to pick up the more picturesque pieces:
BREMERTON, Wash. (AP) - A 25-year-old woman was arrested for investigation of second-degree assault for getting into an argument with her boyfriend over whether his dog should be in the bathroom while the couple were taking a shower together.
A police report said the 26-year-old man wanted his dog to join them in the bathroom, but the woman objected on Thursday night.
She told him if the dog wouldn’t stay out, she didn’t want to be his girlfriend anymore. He replied that maybe his next girlfriend would appreciate the dog more, and called her a name.
The police report said the woman punched him in the face several times and the man dislocated his shoulder when the naked couple grappled. He told police his girlfriend threw a picture frame, which broke and cut him.
Still, even the most grumpiest of cops would smile when he heard the following explanation for yet another stupid traffic accident.
It’s definitely different from the usual ‘Some big boys did it and then ran away.’ variant:
WENATCHEE — Wenatchee police cited a 29-year-old Wenatchee man with first-degree negligent driving. A breathalyzer test showed “a minimal amount of alcohol,” said Wenatchee police Sgt. Cherie Smith.
Witnesses told police the man was northbound on Wenatchee Avenue and drifted into a southbound lane for less than a block. Oncoming traffic stopped and waited for the man to pass, Smith said.
He then totaled his car on a light pole, Smith said.
When police asked the man what caused the accident, his one-word answer was “pterodactyl.”
Yes, however much grief the punters may give our long-suffering cops, occasionally there will be criminals who are so breathtakingly stupid and entertaining that even the dourest pig will snort with happy, healing laughter:
Bungling burglar Peter Addison was nabbed by police - because he scrawled “Peter Addison was here” at the scene of his crime.
The 18-year old wrote his name in black marker pen on a wall as he and pals raided a campsite and went on a boozy wrecking spree.
Police who arrived to investigate the incident were stunned to find Addison’s calling card plus other messages saying: “Thanks for the Stay” at the Toc H Campsite for under privileged children in Adlington, near Macclesfield, Cheshire.
They checked his details on a computer system and when they caught up with him, he was found to be wearing a T shirt stolen from campsite during the burglary.
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