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Proceed with caution
The Lancashire anti-fracking stormtrooper avant-garde made a pincer movement upon County Hall last Friday in order to hand in one of several petitions against the drilling for shale gas in the county. I was 1/7th of the regiment but due to my retiring nature I wasn't in the photo.
Afterwards I repaired to the bewitching surroundings of a new pub in a Grade II listed former bank chambers; it glinted and spangled. There was a giddy, holiday atmosphere. Looking around at the sea of Fred Perry and Ellesse -- surely the most feminine-sounding brand ever to be adopted by self-consciously manly men -- the penny dropped. Preston were away to Port Vale. Mid-afternoon, they drifted off to get the train to Stoke.
They took all the breath in the atmosphere with them, and so I turned to the bothersome matter of my drugs charge. The constable in question had texted me whilst I was mid-protest asking me to contact him for a "chat."
"By the way," I said, "based on what you've outlined in your letter and what you've just said now -- just to say, I'm not going to be contesting this." I arranged to see him at Lancaster Police Station at 9am the following day.
The policeman walked in to the reception area, and I swallowed my embarrassment as I saw the man who had herded me away from being a pest to everyone at the Castle that night -- but not without riffling through my pockets first. He shook my hand, which seemed wrong for the relationship.
We went into a windowless room and he started the tapes. I sat poised in a way which I hope demonstrated worry and the desire to be helpful. "So, you bought these items from this man in the nightclub in Manchester. What did you buy?" My reply avoided the terms used by those fluent in the argot. "It was four tablets of ecstasy, and four little square things of LSD."
"And what did you do with them?" he asked, fishing about for a supply charge. "I just kept them till the right occasion turned up, and I thought a rave in a former prison was such an occasion." "Right. I'll just have to find these drugs on the computer now." After a bit of constable-ish faffing he said "Hmm, it's not letting me add the LSD, so -- we'll just put it down as ecstasy."
He said he'd have to check his decision with a superior officer, but that he was going to recommend a Caution, with a condition that I attend a Drugs Education and Awareness course. "It's only two days but it is compulsory."
I had my DNA swabbed from the inside of my mouth, I was photographed and measured. Back in the main room, the officer wanted a word, and took me down the corridor a few yards.
"I've had a word with the Sergeant, and he says that the course isn't really suitable for you. It's aimed more at habitual, hardcore users of drugs, and I think to be honest you've learnt your own lesson from that night, haven't you?" I took a slow breath in, bit my lip, looked downward, scratched my left eyebrow and said "Yes, you could say that." I was disappointed not to go on the course. It would have been most interesting to get some new contacts understand the current state of official drug prevention strategy.
I was issued with the Caution and had to sign to say that I understood its provisions. He led me chattily back to reception. "So what are you doing for the rest of the day?" "I might have a drink later to be honest." "Well, don't get out of control again because I'm on till 7pm and that would be embarrassing." With another handshake, I was out.
I bumped into Wilma, who was on the way round to mine with the twenty quid she owed me, and a bottle of wine. Together with Trina, we decided that exceptional circumstances called for un verre. The following day Trina and me went to Brittany for a week but I'll tell you about that next time.
14 comments
A finger on the other hand for those of the hornier Cape, please.
Yes, it’s a damn sexy little rond-point there.
Rue du Dick and Hornier Capes? Oh la la les français!
As you can see by the local’s bemused look, sauciness is wasted on the French.
What a charmer you can be. Unfortunately, this means you’re down to eight lives. Please don’t lose count.
What was in that man’s pram?
Most of the people who get into trouble with drugs offences have only themselves to blame. If you attract attenion to yourself, you’re asking for it. I asked for it and am ashamed at myself for temporarily joining the incontinent, shouting, hoi polloi that pollutes Lancaster at night.
What’s in the pram? It was a kilo of speed and 50 sheets of LSD. He’s my contact over there. We pretend to be a gay couple who’ve adopted. We never get stopped, and we post the baby back afterwards, packed with lots of bubble wrap, a hole for breathing and a bottle of water laced with gin to make it sleep.
Or it might just have been a passing Dad out with his little ‘un.
They didn’t remove your passport to stop you leaving the country then? This won’t happen post May 7th once Nigel and his merry band hold the balance of power in the cabinet - they’d have had you flogged in the market sq
If it is the course I think it is it basically tells you to be careful about the amounts you use, who you buy from etc. It hardly is much of a deterrent frankly. The ones run inside a much better but you need to get one a reasonably decent length sentence to get to a prison that runs the good long ones. Not that I recommend that as a route to recovery there are better ways out there via local DIP teams
I would have liked to go on the course because, for obvious reasons, I’m interested in drug policy and what models of addiction, harm, dependence and so on, the DIP uses in closed sessions with convicted drug users.
But as I enjoy taking drugs and have no intention of changing the habits of 30-odd years (well – only to the extent of constantly investigating new ones) it’s better that the place goes to someone whose life is being harmed by drug use and who wants to come off them, rather than someone with an interest in social policy who has absolutely no intention of giving up something lovely and enriching.
Leaving your place in the course to someone else is indeed a very thoughtful gesture, given that you consider yourself to be a lost cause.
And where did you say is that lovely new pub that looks like a men’s club dressed in Ellesse and Fred Perry polo shirts?
PS.- To my shame, I am addicted to black liquorice ever since my most tender years of childhood.
Bit theoretical answering your question seeing how far away you are but just in case you get lost on that funny roundabout outside Hendaye and end up in Preston, it’s called the Twelve Tellers.
I’m not a lost cause, I’m a found one.
All that plaid? Dear God, i thought the Lumbersexual look was something we’d not exported yet… So very sorry if we are somehow responsible for that.
Seems you knew the proper approach to simultaneously take responsibility and avoid substantial consequence for the legal infraction. Not a trivial feat…
Lumbersexual :) I don’t know – I think it’s been here so long we can call it British naturalised now.
There’s a theatrical element to what went on at the police station that was almost enjoyable. I think there was a tacit agreement to pretend that this was a one-off. We both knew it wasn’t, and I don’t think he’s so naive to think that a person starts taking drugs at the age of fifty-one.
Oh, boy: to think I was actually lumbersexual in my teenage choice of wardrobe. I feel like daisyfae has just unlocked some deeper part of my psyche, and have a sudden urge to chop wood.
Amazing how personable the police can be to us respectable(-looking) middle classes, to the extent that they can even act the part you mention. I suppose the pretence is a necessary consequence of policy: longstanding yet respectable and reasonably clean-living drug users aren’t meant to exist.
That’s true SB. It’s almost an embarrassment for them to be prosecuting us. Well, one.
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