Friday 17 October 2008

"Should’ve Gone To Specsavers…"

OK, bar the plastic nose, glassy eyes and distinctly synthetic sheen, perhaps it does look like the real thing.
Sure does. If you’re a complete moron
At least, that's what members of the public thought when they spotted a 'big cat' being driven in the back of a Volvo and rang police.
Because that’s what you do, obviously. Not think to yourself ‘Damn, need to get the prescription changed on my glasses/take more water with it next time, it looked for a second as if that man had a tiger in his car!’. Don’t think twice, just call ‘999’ for someone else to sort it out!

And these people can vote, remember!
Teaching assistant Adam Dobby, 45, was cycling on the A39 near Bude in Devon when the Volvo passed him.

'I noticed a big cat. It was lying in the back and I thought it looked like a tiger,' said the father of four. 'I did a double-take. Its head was moving and was pretty big. It was definitely a tiger.'
A 45 year old teaching assistant! And a father of four! Someone you’d expect to have some common sense.

And why aren’t the police prosecuting him for wasting police time in claiming that it moved, when it clearly couldn’t have?
Joy Hamilton, and daughter Zoe, 18, saw the 'animal' when the Volvo pulled out of a Morrisons store.

'Zoe was aghast, put her hands to her chest, and did a double-take,' she said.
Yeah, the reason for a double-take is to check that what you think you saw is correct, or not. I guess it didn’t work with these two, either…
Police identified the owner of the Volvo as farmer Terry Western.

'Its name is Tigger and it does look very real,' said the 69-year-old, of Clovelly, north Devon.
Actually, no. It doesn’t. Unless you’ve never seen a real tiger in the flesh or on tv, but have had one described to you…
A police spokesman said: 'No action was taken. We encourage people not to carry things that disturb other drivers.'
‘No action’…? What action could they have taken? Did NuLab pass a law stating that you can’t convey cheap, unrealistic models of wild animals in cars, in case it alarms the dim bulbs among the populace (and why not – probably Nu Lab’s core voters, after all..)?

And ‘things that disturb other drivers’…? Who could possibly have foreseen that there are people in the UK so dumb they mistake a cheap Chinese-import soft toy tiger for the real thing? What if they’d seen a Resusi-Annie doll in the back of a first-aider’s car boot, would he be castigated for making Joe and Jean Public report a ‘kidnapping’?

Some might say I’m making too much of what is, basically, a funny story.
But this is the pass we’ve come to – normal people see something and simply call the authorities, regardless of how little it really resembles what they think it is, simply because ‘it’s for others to sort out, I wash my hands of it’. The thought of making further enquiries themselves, corroborating what they thought they saw with others, never enters their heads.

And those others, when they turn up, don’t slam the morons for wasting their time in such a fashion, and issue guidance regarding the proper use of the ‘999’ facility, but issue a statement assuring that no action has been taken against the innocent party (implying that they could, or might have, even though he’s broken no laws), and warning everyone else not to do anything that might upset or alarm the cretins that now walk our streets…

‘Great’ Britain, folks…

8 comments:

Mark Wadsworth said...

Aren't tigers about 8 foot long? Would they even fit in the back of a Volvo?

Anonymous said...

Well, if you can get four elephants in a Mini.... ;)

DJ said...

I'm fairly certain that there's no other country on the planet where the population take such pleasure in using the state to torment each other.

Longrider said...

Common sense is not as common as is commonly presumed. And, people have infinite capacity for stupidity.

Anonymous said...

Halloween is coming. I have fake skulls, fake body parts, fake bones, and lots of fake blood. The fake eyes are especially good. I'll put them on the spikes of my dapper hat.

Trick or treat? Trick, every time. They might not fill their sweet bags but a few will fill their pants. Hey, I didn't invite them round.

If I don't see the police at my door at least once, I'll be disappointed. If they don't crap themselves I'll be doubly disappointed.

Furry Conservative said...

"Aren't tigers about 8 foot long? Would they even fit in the back of a Volvo?"

An experiment I think should be tried, but I don't want to be the driver. Tigers are, in fact, f*cking massive. As someone who grew up with a 'tigger' cuddly toy, the one thing which strikes you when you see a tiger (unless you are unlucky enough for the tiger to strike you) is how enormous they actually are.

Furry Conservative said...

Something dark and disturbing has happened to Britain over the past thirty years. Where once was phlegmatic realism is now hysterical egotism. Reason is suspended. The person who reported this should be shot.

Anonymous said...

I guess somebody read the notices on the Tube that say "Report anything suspicious" and decided to take them seriously.