Fame at last...

Well hardly the start of a showbiz career thank goodness, but tonight's BBC3 series 'Bizarre Crime' broadcast its first of 8 epsiodes and several seconds of it featured my good self recounting a 'tale from the trade'. To my surprise I didn't fnd it too toe-curlingly embarassing, so it probably wasn't too bad!
Meanwhile another year has begun, and another dog has shuffled off the mortal coil - R.I.P. Breeze, aged not far off 13, best labrador the world has ever known, and a truly great pet. But such is life and indeed death, so fond memories remain and I pick up a box of ashes from the vet tomorrow. Just the four dogs remaining so I can hardly say how quiet it is!
Retirement is an amazing thing, and I must start to do more to get book number two under way a little faster, but I also have horses to help with and a Honda to restore, so perhaps some balance is called for.
I hope to do a publicity 'meet the author' style event at Chester Library in the near future, so eyes down for a full(ish) house all being well. Will try to post details as and when it comes about.

November already...

Not that many people have actually visited the blog, but it has been a long time since the last entry. Mind you a lot has hapened too. Last week I managed to stick a chisel in my left hand and had a few stitches as a result - not an act of boredom you understand, just one of those daft accidents that 'other people' have. But this time it was me. A lesson learnt anyway, but not terribly significant.
Over the last few months a great deal has changed - In June I really did get to retire. On the scrapheap at 51? Hardly. It is like walking from the dark into the light, freedom, leaving the asylum, all those sort of things put together. The only problem is that it is so very busy. The sequel to PPP is still a collection of scribbled notes and mental jugglings, it will come about but not for a little while. Patience please.
Even the Honda I have bought to restore has barely moved on in its restoration. This will be some comfort to my mother if she knew of it (she has a passionate hatred of anything two-wheeled) but given that it has a very rare frame and will be something of a showpiece, it may well not turn a wheel on the road for years, so will be even less of a threat to maternal cares. Nice to be loved and not wished harm anyway. Makes a change to the way I was treated by 'the job' over the years on occasion!
The week leading up to the actual retirement date was spent on the Swan, a lovely Shetland-based sailing ship belonging to the Swan Trust. Shetland to Inverness, down the Caledonian Canal and out at Fort William, down the Mull of Kintyre and across to Bangor in Northern Ireland where I jumped ship and The Swan went on to Waterford for the Tall Ships Race back to Lerwick.
Since then I was invited to London to record some 'clips to camera' for a forthcoming BBC3 series called 'Bizarre Crime'. If they don't edit me out then you should be able to see my boyish features on TV somewhere around the end of this year or early next year. Minor and transient fame at last!

The end of an era looms....

Biggest and most eagerly awaited news of the last few months has now broken - I am to retire from the Police. So after 27 and a half years, on June 27th 2011 I will become a pensioner. At the age of 51 that could be daunting, but it is actually something of a rare privilege in these times of squeezed pensions. It will give me a release from most of the pressures which have been building over decades, and provide a whole new set of possibilities for me. To get things in perspective a little, I have suffered a fair bit from all the things I have seen and felt over the years, though I know that others have seen and done things worse than I have, and of course outside my career there are members of the other emergency services and of course the armed forces who have all manner of traumas thrown at them. But these things can only be judged subjectively - different things affect different people in different ways.
Anyway, plan number one of the new era has to be to knuckle down to writing the sequel to 'Prisoners Property and Prostitutes'. Now there's a challenge, but all being well I can pull some strands together from the multifarious ramblings that fill a number of notepads around the house, and make some coherent sense of them. Watch this space, as they say, but not until I have been on a sailing trip from Lerwick to West coast Scotland in late June. I can't wait, work can!

Back to the roots....a recap

I must apologise if this blog rambles around a bit, but I think part of a blog's purpose is to allow vent to some random thoughts, but having found that I have a number of visitors to it from all over the world, particularly the USA, perhaps it is time just to refresh the very reason for this thing's existence.
The blog is effectively a publicity vehicle for the book 'Prisoners, Property and Prostitutes' (and other things beginning with 'P') written by myself, Tom Ratcliffe.
Tom Ratcliffe is not my real name, I have to write under a pseudonym as I remain a serving Police Officer in a semi-rural force in England. The anonymity is not just to remove any proveable link between myself and my employers, but also because to tie the book to one particular force would be a sort of distortion - the experiences recounted, the people described and the thoughts raised are not peculiar to one English County, they exist everywhere, and have done since the dawn of time I guess. You could read this book as a Police Officer anywhere in the world and recognise so many of the situations, dilemmas and choices. As a member of the non-Police world you could also read this and get a good insight into the view I have tried to give of humanity. I have tried not to judge - that's too easy and too conceited. I have just tried to give an honest report of my observations, and leave you the reader to make your mind up as to what is right and what is wrong. The vehicle for this account is my own career and its development (or lack of it) depending what you think. I have been flattered and pleased to have so many favourable reports from Police and public alike, so to return to the original purpose of this blog, if you haven't read the book then please give it a try. I can't do money-back guarantees, but I can say with reasonable certainly in an uncertain world that I think you'll enjoy it. Kindle or paperback, give it a go please!
Probably back to the usual ramblings for the next post.......

Blog statistics

To those of you who have followed this blog it will come as no surprise if I tell you I don't understand blog technology very well, but I do try. Well occasionally. I came across a 'Stats' tab on my blog technical bits this evening and it shows me (among other things) where those who have viewed the blog originate from. I was surprised and flattered to find there have been 10 from Iran (I speak a really tiny amount of Perisan so that brought back a few memories) a couple from South Korea (I have owned a couple of Hyundai cars so that is appropriate) a few from Russia (where my niece is studying at the moment) a good number from the UK, and the majority from America. Then it dawned on me that some may have stumbled on the blog in a search for prostitutes rather than literary excellence. This is a little disappointing, but can I just suggest that if you have visited this blog in what started as a quest for 'rent-a-shag', that you perhaps buy the book anyway for these reasons - it may not give as much immediate pleasure as a sexual encounter, but it will last far longer, your wife won't be annoyed to find you have been dabbling with it, it is far cheaper and less likely to infect you with anything. Except perhaps a bit of humour.
Or maybe I misjudge people and all have a keen interest in acquiring under-publicised examples of contemporary English law enforcement autobiographies. So come on citizens of the world, don't be shy - leave me a comment and let me know where you stumbled onto the blog from!

Rise of the e-book and other thoughts

Well hardly a meteoric rise from my point of view, but interestingly out of the last 55 book sales, 8 have been as e-books. Not staggering numbers as a total, but an interesting proportion. There is much speculation among those who have little else to do that e-books have a huge future. They are certainly a different approach, and have a couple of advantages in that you can carry  an entire library in a thing the size of a paperback, and those with a visual impairment (or just me when I've left my glasses somewhere) can increase the print size. In the past such myopics were restricted to the 'large print' section of the library, which only seemed to include a few Mills and Boon things and maybe the odd 'over 65's guide to North Wales' or such similar best-seller. On the other hand, the advantage of a physical book is that the batteries never run out.
An update from the last post - absolutely nobody sought me out for a free book at Hartpury, but the show went well, daughter completing a number of very impressive rounds, inculding a 14th place out of a field of 70 odd in one class. The weather was brilliant too, making walking the dogs in a nearby field a pleasant experience instead of a miserable trudge as it would have been if wet. Both dogs behaved impeccably too - just as well really.
Unfortunately both horses are now on rest as there are rumbling lameness problems in the younger one, and some form of arthritis in the shoulder of the older one - although at 12 years old she is hardly ready for Fray Bentos yet.But these things are sent to try us, so will just have to make the best of it and hope for a recovery in the younger and as much improvement as possible in the older.
I must try to settle into the sequel to the first book, but a few obstacles to concentration keep cropping up - as soon as they subside (assuming they do) I will try to get organised.
Meanwhile I also have the fleet of motorcycles to think about fettling up for a bit of use before summer hurtles past and petrol becomes a form of jewellery for the super-rich. Still, at least my day is better than Bin Laden's last weekend. 'Bloody hell that helicopter sounds low' followed by 'Ooh my brain hurts', followed by 'can I have my brain back please'. I am not a fan of capital punishment, but in OBL's case the term 'good riddance to bad rubbish' cames to mind. That's about as political as I get here.
More ramblings and news as it happens, or within a month or two anyway.

A quandary...

So from the last reply I have to work out who posted the reply - as suggested, from a possible shortlist of 2000 I take away those who I have upset, those who have upset me, etcetera and so forth. Well if I subtract those two main categories it leaves very few, but then there are a lot more than 2000 to consider - that is only the approximate number now serving. Add to that all those who have served with me but now retired, and then throw into the melting pot all the bloody civves, civilians, unsworn staff, and police staff. (I think that covers the array of terms used over the years to refer to those employed who aren't Police Officers within the setup).
Reminds me of the comment allegedly made by one of the Popes a few years ago when asked 'How many people work in the Vatican?', and he thought for a moment before replying 'About two'.
Sadly, with things the way they are, there will probably be only about two people left working in the whole force by the time the cuts are finished. Question is, will they be uniform section, or will it be a case of one of them is uniform and the other collates performance figures, sets targets, and arranges meetings on a regular basis to discuss ways in which the other can become more cost effective?