Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com

Average Customer Rating:

A Trace Too Much

Customer Rating:

Having read the foreward and noted all 11 reviews to date had awarded a 5 star rating, my expectations were high. The first few chapters started well and I found myself chuckling like the other reviewers. However, the more I got into the book, the more repetitive it became. For sure the levels of bureaucracy, procedural madness and political correctness beggar belief, but just how many anecdotes and examples do you need to make the same point. Additionally the irony and sarcasm is laid on so thick it starts to become monotous and tiresome in the extreme. By halfway I didn't really care if Bloggsy would get it on with Will, if the Perils would ever see their day in court or if the weedkiller would ever arrive at Blandmore nick. I stuck with the book 'til the end, hoping it would improve again, but wish I hadn't. To be fair the book delivers what it promises, which may explain the high ratings, but for me all the chapters morphed into one and were completely interchangeable. If the book was half the length, then I'd probably double my rating.

Enjoyable read, but worrying with it

Customer Rating:

VERY much enjoyed reading this book, I definitely recommend it to anyone (I have no employment connections to the Police or Law). I've also read 'Perverting the course of Justice' by Inspector Gadget Perverting the Course of Justice: The Hilarious and Shocking Inside Story of British Policingand P.C. David Copperfield's blog (available as a book)Wasting Police Time: The Crazy World of the War on Crime. What shines through from all three sources is that the direction of modern policing is mad! They all provoke the question - how the hell do we get back to 'proper' policing? All of the writers come across as likeable, respectable, human people. They don't pretend that the police are perfect, but on the whole people who want to catch the baddies and protect the public. What a great idea that would be, wouldn't it? We really need to let them get back to the job, rather than filling in huge numbers of forms. Get the office bound back to the frontline. Get a judiciary with some concept of reality. Back in the real world - I recommend all three authors' writings! Enjoy

Ironic, sarcastic, depressing and very very funny !

Customer Rating:

Whilst a MOP myself (Member Of Public) I opened the book with great interest and found it an incredibly addictive read. I thoroughly recommend it for lots of uses : as something to make you sigh at how ridiculously beaurocratic the U.K. has become, something to help you understand the response you receive if you call 999 because somebody "looked at you funny" or most of all, as something to genuinely make you laugh out loud at totally inappropriate moments ! I found myself sighing and muttering to myself numerous times whilst reading at the sheer stupidity of how our police forces are "managed" according to "targets" these days - this country has gone mad ! At the same time, some parts of the book are just beautifully, exquisitely funny. I absolutely recommend reading this book - it is educational in a way that the tax paying public of the U.K. desperately need to know about and a thoroughly addictive read at the same time. If you want to read something that will make you genuinely belly-laugh then you need to buy this book !

Absolutely spot on!	Customer Rating:
Hilarious book and her description of my previous job of 2 years in civilian support staff land and all the paperwork is so spot on! I only hope more members of the public read this before they whinge about the police, they might realise it really should be government policies and procedures are to blame! Go whinge at Gordon!!!

Brilliantly satirical account of life in the 21st century police

Customer Rating:

This hysterically funny and horrifyingly plausible book takes the form of a journal covering a few months in the life of a WPC in a town called "Blandmore" in the county of "Blandshire." I suspect it is not impossible that "Blandshire" might actually be Cumbria. However, the fact that I thought I recognised the county where I live at a couple of points while reading the book may just be an indication of how universal a description it provides of modern policing. Perhaps many other readers were thinking that "WPC Bloggs" must work in the constabulary covering their own police authority area. I can't think of a better way to indicate the amusing and ironic style of this book than to quote from the foreword: "Before you turn to page 1, the first thing you need to do is to forget everything you think you know about the police. You know - the bits where they come out when you call 999, try to find out what's happened and arrest the guilty parties? Forget all that. While you're at it, forget about common sense, too. Instead, try to imagine a world where the police are run by a group of paranoid, pedantic and politically-correct accountants. On acid. ... Imagine that half the people who work for the police spend their lives phoning officers asking them to respond to emails asking why they forgot to tick a box on the fifth in a set of a dozen forms relating to an incident where ... [ a drunken four-year old] said a rude word ... The modern British police is like all that, only much, much madder. ... I wrote this book after realising ... that people outside the job have absolutely no idea what's going on in the police. ... Modern policing is a bizarre, twilight zone: one part George Orwell, one part Franz Kafka and one part Trisha. At times you may find it all a bit confusing. That's because it is. There are various references to police departments that sound unnecessary and pointless. That's because they are. ... This book comes with a health warning; CONTAINS SATIRE, IRONY, AND TRACES OF SARCASM." If you can read "Diary of an on-call girl" without laughing, you are Home Secretary Jacqui Smith and I claim my peerage ...