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11th September 2013: The world's gone mad and I'm the only one who knows
13th August 2013: Black is white. Fact. End of.
11th August 2013: Electric cars, not as green as they're painted?
18th June 2013: Wrinklies unite, you have nothing to lose but your walking frames!
17th May 2013: Some actual FACTS about climate change (for a change) from actual scientists ...
10th May 2013: An article about that poison gas, carbon dioxide, and other scientific facts (not) ...
10th May 2013: We need to see past the sex and look at the crimes: is justice being served?
8th May 2013: So, who would you trust to treat your haemorrhoids, Theresa May?
8th May 2013: Why should citizens in the 21st Century fear the law so much?
30th April 2013: What the GOS says today, the rest of the world realises tomorrow ...
30th April 2013: You couldn't make it up, could you? Luckily you don't need to ...
29th April 2013: a vote for NONE OF THE ABOVE, because THE ABOVE are crap ...
28th April 2013: what goes around, comes around?
19th April 2013: everyone's a victim these days ...
10th April 2013: Thatcher is dead; long live Thatcher!
8th April 2013: Poor people are such a nuisance. Just give them loads of money and they'll go away ...
26th March 2013: Censorship is alive and well and coming for you ...
25th March 2013: Just do your job properly, is that too much to ask?
25th March 2013: So, what do you think caused your heterosexuality?
20th March 2013: Feminists - puritans, hypocrites or just plain stupid?
18th March 2013: How Nazi Germany paved the way for modern governance?
13th March 2013: Time we all grew up and lived in the real world ...
12th March 2013: Hindenburg crash mystery solved? - don't you believe it!
6th March 2013: Is this the real GOS?
5th March 2013: All that's wrong with taxes
25th February 2013: The self-seeking MP who is trying to bring Britain down ...
24th February 2013: Why can't newspapers just tell the truth?
22nd February 2013: Trial by jury - a radical proposal
13th February 2013: A little verse for two very old people ...
6th February 2013: It's not us after all, it's worms
6th February 2013: Now here's a powerful argument FOR gay marriage ...
4th February 2013: There's no such thing as equality because we're not all the same ...
28th January 2013: Global Warming isn't over - IT'S HIDING!
25th January 2013: Global Warmers: mad, bad and dangerous to know ...
25th January 2013: Bullying ego-trippers, not animal lovers ...
19th January 2013: We STILL haven't got our heads straight about gays ...
16th January 2013: Bullying ego-trippers, not animal lovers ...
11th January 2013: What it's like being English ...
7th January 2013: Bleat, bleat, if it saves the life of just one child ...
7th January 2013: How best to put it? 'Up yours, Argentina'?
7th January 2013: Chucking even more of other people's money around ...
6th January 2013: Chucking other people's money around ...
30th December 2012: The BBC is just crap, basically ...
30th December 2012: We mourn the passing of a genuine Grumpy Old Sod ...
30th December 2012: How an official body sets out to ruin Christmas ...
16th December 2012: Why should we pardon Alan Turing when he did nothing wrong?
15th December 2012: When will social workers face up to their REAL responsibility?
15th December 2012: Unfair trading by a firm in Bognor Regis ...
14th December 2012: Now the company that sells your data is pretending to act as watchdog ...
7th December 2012: There's a war between cars and bikes, apparently, and  most of us never noticed!
26th November 2012: The bottom line - social workers are just plain stupid ...
20th November 2012: So, David Eyke was right all along, then?
15th November 2012: MPs don't mind dishing it out, but when it's them in the firing line ...
14th November 2012: The BBC has a policy, it seems, about which truths it wants to tell ...
12th November 2012: Big Brother, coming to a school near you ...
9th November 2012: Yet another celebrity who thinks, like Jimmy Saville, that he can behave just as he likes because he's famous ...
5th November 2012: Whose roads are they, anyway? After all, we paid for them ...
7th May 2012: How politicians could end droughts at a stroke if they chose ...
6th May 2012: The BBC, still determined to keep us in a fog of ignorance ...
2nd May 2012: A sense of proportion lacking?
24th April 2012: Told you so, told you so, told you so ...
15th April 2012: Aah, sweet ickle polar bears in danger, aah ...
15th April 2012: An open letter to Anglian Water ...
30th March 2012: Now they want to cure us if we don't believe their lies ...
28th February 2012: Just how useful is a degree? Not very.
27th February 2012: ... so many ways to die ...
15th February 2012: DO go to Jamaica because you definitely WON'T get murdered with a machete. Ms Fox says so ...
31st January 2012: We don't make anything any more
27th January 2012: There's always a word for it, they say, and if there isn't we'll invent one
26th January 2012: Literary criticism on GOS? How posh!
12th December 2011: Plain speaking by a scientist about the global warming fraud
9th December 2011: Who trusts scientists? Apart from the BBC, of course?
7th December 2011: All in all, not a good week for British justice ...
9th November 2011: Well what d'you know, the law really IS a bit of an ass ...

 

 
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In 2002 an elderly street preacher, Harry Hammond, displayed a placard that said "Stop immorality. Stop homosexuality. Stop lesbianism". He was surrounded by a group of thirty or forty people who threw dirt at him and poured water over his head. The police arrested him, he was tried, convicted and fined £300.He appealed, and lost - the appeal court judge said his behaviour "went beyond legitimate protest" because it had provoked disorder.
 
So far as we know, none of the crowd that assaulted him was arrested.
 
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Doctor Otto Chan, a radiologist from North London, returned from holiday to find that thieves had smashed through the back door and stolen unopened Christmas presents and three computers. Doctor Chan could afford to replace the computers, but hundreds of family photographs and files containing more than 150 lectures on radiology were literally irreplaceable.
 
Finding that the police showed little interest in investigating the burglary and did not send a single uniformed officer, Doctor Chan decided to take action himself to retrieve the stolen property. He pinned up posters around his neighbourhood offering a reward for anyone who returned the computers, Christmas presents and priceless family photographs.
 
The police phoned and threatened to arrest him for attempting to buy stolen goods, despite the fact that the goods in question were his own property. Apparently, under section 23 of the Theft Act 1968, it is illegal to advertise rewards for return of goods stolen or lost using words to the effect that no questions will be asked. Anyone convicted faces a fine of up to £100 and will get a criminal record.
 
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This week a Manchester homeowner was arrested after a burglar plunged from the balcony of his top-floor flat. The intruder suffered head injuries and is fighting for his life after falling around 30ft on to a concrete path. Later police arrested the owner and are investigating whether the intruder was pushed.
 
The incident happened early on Monday when Patrick Walsh, 56, awoke to find the 43-year-old man rifling through his flat. They argued and the confrontation moved towards the rear window of the flat. It is believed the intruder then smashed the window and clambered out on to a narrow ledge and fell to the ground.
 
Mr.Walsh phoned police and at around 6.30 a.m. officers found the man on the ground outside the smart Victorian apartment block in Chorlton-cum-Hardy. He was taken to hospital with serious head injuries. Officers arrested Mr.Walsh on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm with intent and are trying to establish whether the intruder was forced out of the window.
 

 
The GOS says: But you can see the police's point, can't you? Why expend all the manpower and effort to find the people who assaulted Harry Hammond when he's just standing there begging to be charged with something or other? Why bother charging the Manchester burglar who'll almost certainly get off anyway, when you can get a GBH out of the homeowner with no effort at all? And what's the point of wasting some constable's time trying to recover Doctor Chan's computers which like all secondhand computers are almost worthless, when you have the opportunity of a nice little tick on the crime statistics by charging the doctor himself?
 
It's a no-brainer, really, isn't it? I mean, it's not people who matter. It's statistics and clear-up rates.
 
You can just imagine the scene in Patrick Walsh's front room that night, can't you?

 
(A darkened flat at midnight. A burglar enters stage left, and begins rifling through the bureau. Enter Walsh, stage right)
Walsh: Good God! How did you get in? What are you doing here?
Burglar: Evenin', squire. Just popped in to do a bit of thieving. Won't keep you a moment, then I'll be out of your way.
Walsh: Get out! I'm calling the police!
Burglar: Now come on, squire, don't be like that. The police won't take kindly if you wake them up at this hour. Busy people, the police.
Walsh: Shut up and get out! This is my home, for God's sake!
Burglar: Now, just leave God out of it, please, sir. I'm a Muslim, as it happens, and shouting at me about God is highly offensive. There are laws about that sort of thing.
Walsh: Look, get … put that down! My mother left me that! You blackguard, put it down or I'll …
Burglar: Now then, sir, now then! Don't take that attitude with me. I'm just doing my job …
 
Of course if you applied plain old-fashioned common-sense to the incident, you might assume that the moment a criminal broke the law by forcing entry into someone else's property, he would forfeit the protection of the law.
 
But then, a world governed by common-sense?
 
Nah, that'd never work …

 

 
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