1 in 58 police patrolling the streets

I read today in the Sunday Telegraph that only one in 58 police are patrolling the streets at any given time. This is based on the result that each police person spends about 14% of their duty time patrolling the streets. There are about 150,000 police and around 2500 are patrolling the street.

The reason for this is blamed on the amount of paper work that they have to do which appears to have steadily increased by the government. This is just difficult to fathom. Surely the police in other countries spend much less time on paper work and spend a greater amount of time outside patrolling the streets?

I have mentioned about reintroducing smaller mini police stations around the country. Considering the area of UK to be 245,000 sq km and having three in the mini police station, we can have 50,000 covering just under 5 sq km each. This is of course a trivial calculation but on the surface, it looks feasible. I have assumed a uniform density of these mini police stations so a more appropriate spread of them will make the idea even more attractive.

Dog poo on my shoe

Dog owners, please can you pick up your dog's poo. Today, I spent some time cleaning off the mess off my shoe. Although this is a nuisance, I am much more concerned about my daughter falling ill. I have heard that some dog poos contain worms that can cause blindness (if say a toddler rubs their eye with a dirtied hand). I am sure the dog owners that leave the poo on purpose do not understand the severe consequences. I do believe that if the dog owners are told of the dangers of dog poo, they will all clean it up. Should there be signs erected in the park that succinctly explains the consequences?

I would like to know why they do not clean it up in the first place. Are they too lazy? Do they think that the rain will miraculously wash it away so that their efforts will be pointless? If they have a garden, do they leave the poo lying about without cleaning it up? I cannot believe all the owners that do not bother cleaning up the mess in public places will act in the same way at home. So why the difference? Do they think that a public area is not their responsibility? Any way you look at it, they lack moral values.

There is such a thing called the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005. So it is against the law to leave the mess behind.

Dog owner takes another dog owner's dog

I have written negatively about some dog owners in my previous posts. I just wanted to say that I am not biased. I was in the park with my daughter and we were playing in a pretty packed playground. A dog owner was playing with a child and the dog was waiting outside. I was busy with my daughter but I noticed that another dog owner was concerned about this dog all alone and decided to take it with her. She had apparently called for the rightful dog owner but without a response. I alerted the incident to the rightful dog owner who had been engrossed in a game with the child. She managed to get her dog back just in time.

Youth, 16, knifed to death as gang chants 'kill him, kill him'

The article with the above title caught my eye today in the Daily Telegraph. The gang included boys and girls but the police have arrested 7 males - four 13-year-olds, two 15-year-olds and a 21-year-old. Murders of youths are fairly common these days but this story stands out because so many people were indirectly (or you may really say directly) involved. Did they really want him killed or the chant was just to scare him? It appears that they had hammers, bats and knives to go through with the killing pretty easily. Perhaps they were used to scare him?

If they all valued life, the death would have been avoided. I feel that children these days do not value life as much. They seem to treat it as one of those things. Killing someone is no big deal. I can only imagine that, to develop such an attitude, they are surrounded by events that trivialise killing. The TV, music, films and computer games have all trivialised killing and are still doing so. Surely it is time to reverse this trend and put more emphasis on how valuable life is. We cannot just rely on education to instill such a view. We need the cooperation of the media as well.

This is all linked to our moral values declining. Although killing is one of the worst outcomes, there are other less extreme cases of the moral decline. For instance, my front tooth is dead because someone at my secondary school punched me in the face. He distracted me by saying the teacher was looking at us in the class room. I turned to see but the teacher was looking at something else and as I turned back, I was hit (very naive of me I know). This is clearly a difference in moral values. I was aware that punching someone in the face can be dangerous. You can severely disfigure someone and you can even kill someone. I have never punched someone else in the face. This puncher obviously did not have the proper moral values. He did not show any regret or anything after the event. This happened just because I pushed him when he said some insulting words to me.

How did the puncher have such moral values? I have blamed the media above but on second thoughts, I have been acquainted with such material from a very young age (since maybe seven). It must be the way my parents brought me up. I think nurture has a lot to do with it but nature also. Some people are more violent than other people and if they want to have better moral values, they need to be taught more than others.

Although I have said that the media has not affected me, I still think that some people will be affected. Is it difficult to have scenes in movies where a fight is about to erupt but they come to their senses by thinking of the consequences? Why can't games promote how to prevent fighting (you can do this by awarding more points to the player for doing so)? Why does music need to glorify violence?

I suppose it is to do with the children being rebellious and so naturally gravitate towards material that show the most rebelliousness. I don't know if we can control this rebellious streak but instilling the proper moral values will nevertheless be invaluable.

Politician waste light

The media has recently remarked on how Government buildings are lit up over night. This is not because there are people working late. Are they trying to scare off a potential burglar? All this during the time when they are asking the public to be more energy efficient. How can we entrust the country in the hands of such morally inconsistent politicians?

Woman with a dog destroys toddler's ball

I have no prejudice towards people with dogs in general but here is another incident I encountered involving a dog owner. As the toddler was playing with his ball, a dog grabbed it and destroyed it. The owner just apologised and walked off. The mother had to say to her son, say bye bye to the ball. How can someone just destroy someone else's property and walk away like this? Is it not common courtesy to at least offer compensation?

I was also involved in a similar incident when I was around maybe 15. I was playing tennis when a youthful looking dog bounded into the court and grabbed one of the new balls (which I rarely bought but I digress). After it had deposited enough saliva and exercised its jaws enough by gnawing, the ball was ready to be placed in the bin. The owner who was much older than us just said an empty apology and walked off? I was quite taken aback by this nonchalant behaviour but I managed to draw his attention to the fact that a tennis ball in the UK is very expensive and asked for some money to contribute towards it. He just made another excuse and walked off.

Dangerous man with a dog and a stick

As I was playing with my daughter in the playground, a man jogging along with his dog hurled a heavy stick into the playground which was intended for the dog to chase. It narrowly missed a girl standing by and another girl in the swing. Even if he had managed to avoid the playground, there were children playing football nearby so there really was no place for such a dangerous implement to be thrown. The girl on the swing managed to throw it outside the enclosure where the dog was waiting eagerly. The man just said something like good throw and carried on jogging. I don't think he actually felt sorry at all. He must have felt that as it did not hit anyone, it was ok. Surely he could have at least set a good example to the children and said sorry.

I remember a similar incident vividly to this day that I regret very much (maybe I was 14). I was playing golf in the park where there was no one in sight except some people playing in the tennis courts. I had some idea of how far I could hit the golf ball but never in my wildest dreams did I expect the ball to reach the tennis courts. Luckily, it had hit the fence and trickled into the tennis court. I rushed over to the tennis court and apologised profusely. I was prepared to be scolded severely but the father was very magnanimous. I was in a state of shock for quite some time afterwards. How could this man calmly jog away from the above scene? I struggle to understand.

Marketing Inequalities

To expand readership, newspapers like to offer things like DVDs and books for free. At least this is the case in the UK. I wonder what it's like abroad? You would think that everyone would be treated equally if you buy their newspaper but sometimes this is not the case.

The Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Telegraph have recently offered a collection of National Geographic DVDs and Jane Austen novels.

4 DVDs came inside the weekend papers probably because they use plastic bags to keep everything together. In order to get the rest for free, you have to buy the Daily Telegraph at a stationery shop called WH Smiths. The only other way of getting them is to buy the newspaper elsewhere and request them to be posted to you (you must pay the postage). I think this is unfair on the customer as well as the other retailers.

Similarly, you can get the Jane Austen novels for free if you buy the newspapers at Costa Coffee shops. Any other way, it is not free.

Is this a good marketing tactic? To me, you should create a reputation that all customers will be treated equally.

Surprisingly, there are many other things that harbour inequalities. For instance, food. In one supermarket, they may offer buy one get one free but in another, you will only get one. Customers are quite accustomed to different prices in different places for the same good. Surely the more unified the prices are, the more faith the customer will have provided everything else remains constant?

Brushing teeth 3 times a day

My primary and secondary schools did not encourage us to brush our teeth after lunch. Would it not be better if the children are encouraged to do so with the cooperation of the schools?

No smoking sign for playground

I wrote the following to my local council.

Health Issue. In my local playground, there are adults (and teenagers) that smoke in the enclosure. Can we at least have a NO SMOKING sign for the playground enclosure? You would think that this is common sense but some people just don't know. It would be nice to have a no smoking policy for the whole park.

Safety Issue. In the same playground, there are children that play with balls (I mean the heavy footballs) inside the enclosure. They also use part of the enclosure as the goal and kick the heavy balls towards the playground. I have felt very unsafe for fear of my daughter (21months) and any other child getting hit. My daughter narrowly avoided getting hit by a heavy ball. An accident is waiting to happen. I think at least a sign prohibiting playing with heavy balls is needed.

Violence on TV programs for toddlers

I cannot help wondering whether the "violence" depicted on channels like CBeebies (BBC) is having a bad influence on toddlers? Violence is an extreme word but I feel the following content could be misconstrued by the toddlers:

• generally unpleasant behaviour in Higgledy House.
• Mud fight in Bob the Builder.
  

You may disagree with my view but I have evidence of such behaviour in the playground. My daughter has been pushed and hit by other toddlers just for being there. I cannot understand how toddlers can develop these tendencies. I am sure that there are cases due to the innate disposition of the child but surely the TV can be blamed for the quantity of violence in the playground?

Commission based salaries connected with poor moral values

I have written about a parking attendant with poor moral values because his salary is commission based. Check out the poor morals of a parking attendant and the local council.

I have come across a related article in the Sunday Mirror:

11 February 2007

THE BULLY BAILIFFS

EXPOSED: CRUEL TRICKS OF THE DEBT-CHASERS .. here's one trying to get cash from a sick woman.. just as two paramedics arrive to treat her SUNDAY Mirror INVESTIGATES

By Nick Owens

This is another example of poor moral values because the salaries are commission based. Just because the Government has outsourced these jobs, they think that they have nothing to do with this. Well, it is the Government's job to prevent these problems from happening. Looking at the basic salary of the bailiffs at 9000 pounds and the 20% commission on every debt, they are virtually encouraged to get the money even if they have to be morally deplorable.

If nothing is done about this, the situation is only going to get worse.