From Twitter 01-20-2011

• 00:09:22: Well, tweepleverse, time to retire. Foot quacks tomorrow...I hope they decide that things are going well pedally. Sleep tight, y'all!
  
• 09:24:31: Morning, all. Off to the quack...wish me luck!
  
• 15:27:37: Back from the quack. Nearly ended up with more IV antibiotics, but I am not infected enough. Sometimes I wonder about them...
  

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There'll Always be an England, Secret Policemen's Ball Department

Those of you who read the foreign news (in the US) may have come across several articles in the Grauniad discussing the fact, just revealed, that an undercover policeman not only infiltrated a particularly harmless environmental activist organisation, but slept with several of the female activists. Another police undercover agent actually married an activist and they had two children before he broke down and confessed that he wasn't who he had said he was.

Well, after two stories about policemen not being able to keep their trousers zipped, we heard yesterday that the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer (Treasury spokesman for the opposition Labour party) resigned his post for "personal reasons". Normally if they themselves have transgressed they say that they are resigning to "spend more time with their family". This morning we awoke to the news that he no longer has a family with which to spend time with as his former police bodyguard from the time he was Home Secretary has had (perhaps "is having") an affair with Johnson's wife and she has left him.

One wonders how many more cases of this nature are simmering just under the saucepan lid. There have been three undercover officers identified who infiltrated peaceful activist groups, two of which (the two men) got sexually involved with the people they were spying on. And a politician who (frankly) is one of the few Labour politicians I have time for as he is a hard worker, very personable, and doesn't act as if being in the Cabinet made his sh*t not to stink, is poleaxed by his police bodyguard and his marriage ruined.

It used to be that bent coppers were limited to physical violence against prisoners and taking bribes. Now it seems they are becoming studs as well.

Later note; Guido Fawkes is now reporting that Johnson's successor investigated Johnson's private life and discovered that Johnson himself was having an affair with a civil servant. This doesn't make it right for the bodyguard to have an affair with Johnson's wife, but it certainly shows that what's sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander. Those old wives knew whereof they spoke. And of course, it's really creepy that the new Shadow Chancellor might have been implicated in the discoveries which led to Johnson's resignation, if that is true.

Yesterday's Marblehead Police Log

As the Marblehead Reporter has broken up the police log by days, I don't often read it nowadays. Howeve,r the Reporter's Facebook feed tipped me off that January 20, 2011 had been a rather interesting day in the life of Marblehead's Finest. The police officers even managed to keep their junk in their trousers, in contradistinction to Her Majesty's constabulary previously reported here.

Walk-in requested that police issue a ticket to her landlord for not removing ice from previous storm at 7:57 a.m. She was informed that there was no law that would allow police to issue a ticket, that it was a civil issue. The woman showed the dispatcher her lacerated wrist, which was wrapped in gauze. The dispatcher told the woman that she would document the injury but reiterated that it was a civil issue. The woman then turned around and pulled down her pants, revealing severely bruised buttocks. “Is this a civil matter?” she asked. Woman gave dispatcher the name of the landlord.

Caller on Village Street reported attempted e-mail scam at 9:37 a.m.

Conducted well-being check and investigation on Linden Street at 10:55 a.m.

Caller reported that cars were bypassing cones that Light Department had set up and were running into a block at the end of Beacon Street, where they had to turn around at 10:56 a.m. Light Department opened up the road a short time later.

Hanging street sign reported on Cross and Pleasant streets at 11:01 a.m.

Drivers speeding and parked three-deep near Glover School on Maple Street reported at 2:15 p.m.

Investigated report from the Marblehead High School office of a possible fight on the railroad right-of-way behind the post office on Smith Street at 2:23 p.m. Officers monitored the area, and there were no problems; however, at 3:26 p.m., police officers were called to Rowland Street where a fight had indeed broken out.

Anonymous caller, who had called police station previously, reported being harassed by various members of the NFL and the Actors Guild, among other allegations at 8:45 p.m. Initial attempt to trace call failed. However, she called back at 11:54 p.m., and police were able to trace call at that point.

And so another humdrum day in Marblehead, Massachusetts came to a close.