I like the idea of Rough Justice as the title of the new Spider Shepherd book, but the master Jack Higgins used it last year! My thinking cap is still on!
This just in from the chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales. The new book is about vigilante cops, police officers who are fed up with the criminal justice system, so what Paul McKeever has to say fits in really well with what I'm writing.
The Government has created a "hokey cokey" criminal justice system that fails to tackle persistent offenders, the leader of rank and file police officers has said.
Paul McKeever, chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales, said officers are "sick to death" of seeing the same criminals again and again.
He told Home Secretary Jacqui Smith at the Federation's annual conference in Bournemouth how many officers view her with "real suspicion and distrust" after a series of clashes over pay, pensions and workplace reform.
He said: "It's in out, in out, let all the prisoners out. In out, in out, shake the system about."
Mr McKeever branded the belief that constant modernisation and reshaping of the police will solve crime more effectively as a "big lie".
He said: "We and the people we serve are being failed by the rest of the criminal justice system.
"A criminal justice system that isn't working and is seen by many people as being there to protect offenders' interests above the interests of law-abiding members of the public.
"Rather than addressing the real problem of ineffective sanctions, ineffective education programmes and ineffective rehabilitation the focus is on us, the police, to detect the same people more often and bring them before the courts again and again."
Mr McKeever said police are left in a "constant state of flux" as politicians constantly demand change.
He added: "This means we will never be left alone as we can never be seen as fit for purpose, otherwise politicians would themselves have to be answerable to the electorate as to why crime goes on being committed.
"In effect, in the eyes of politicians, the police are the problem that needs to be solved, when the reality is that it is the criminals who are the problem and we are the solution."
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Cats With Guns
Why would anyone pose cats with sniper rifles? I have no idea, but these made me smile. How did I come across them. I Googled "Sniper Cats". Why did I do that? I have absolutely no idea. I am almost up to 60,000 words on the new Spider Shepherd book and am flat out so it's not as if I have spare time on my hands!
Friday, May 8, 2009
Terror In The Sky
A head has finally rolled for authorising the 747 photo-op fly-by in New York where a 747 was shadowed by an F-16 jet as it flew by the statue of liberty. Not surpringly it caused some panic in a city which has never fully-recovered from the attacks on 9-11.
A White House military aide who authorised an Air Force flyover of New York which caused panic among some people in the city has resigned.
Louis Caldera said in a resignation letter to President Barack Obama that the controversy over the mission - a photo shoot of a jumbo jet used as Air Force One with the Statue of Liberty in the background - made it impossible for him to lead the White House Military Office.
The flight over lower Manhattan for a photo shoot scared some New Yorkers who remembered the September 11 attacks in 2001 involving hijacked airliners that destroyed the World Trade Centre. Some people panicked and evacuated office buildings when the planes flew over.
Mr Caldera had approved the mission. His resignation came on the same day Defence Secretary Robert Gates said in a letter to Senator John McCain that the photo shoot cost US taxpayers as much as $357,000 (£234,000).
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Mr Obama had accepted the resignation.
Mr Obama had been described as furious when the incident occurred on April 27 and demanded a review.
Mr McCain, who lost to Mr Obama in last year's presidential election and is the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called the incident an "Air Farce One photo op."
The report of the review said ultimately Mr Caldera did not notify relevant White House officials about the flyover in advance.
It said: "When asked why he failed to do so, he did not offer a coherent explanation. He stated that it was not a conscious decision - he did not intend not to notify them. Instead, he suggested that it may have been an oversight."
Also released was a photo of the Air Force jet over the State of Liberty from the mission.
Mr Gates, providing details demanded by Mr McCain in the wake of the incident, said the cost of a jumbo jet that is used as the president's plane, Air Force One, was estimated between $300,658 and $328,835.
The cost of two accompanying F-16 jets was $28,177 for a total of $357,012, Mr Gates said.
But my spider-sense is tingling. Hmmmmm. What if it really was an attempted terrorist attack and not a photo-opportunity? What if there were terrorists on board the plane but they were thwarted at the last minute? What if the jet was there to blow it out of the sky? What if the resignation is just part of the cover-up, so that the American people don't realise how close they came to another major terrorist attack? See, there's the problem... Govenments lie so often that we no longer believe a word they say....
Either way, it'd be a great book. Just gotta work out how I can get Spider Shepherd on Air Force One!
A White House military aide who authorised an Air Force flyover of New York which caused panic among some people in the city has resigned.
Louis Caldera said in a resignation letter to President Barack Obama that the controversy over the mission - a photo shoot of a jumbo jet used as Air Force One with the Statue of Liberty in the background - made it impossible for him to lead the White House Military Office.
The flight over lower Manhattan for a photo shoot scared some New Yorkers who remembered the September 11 attacks in 2001 involving hijacked airliners that destroyed the World Trade Centre. Some people panicked and evacuated office buildings when the planes flew over.
Mr Caldera had approved the mission. His resignation came on the same day Defence Secretary Robert Gates said in a letter to Senator John McCain that the photo shoot cost US taxpayers as much as $357,000 (£234,000).
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Mr Obama had accepted the resignation.
Mr Obama had been described as furious when the incident occurred on April 27 and demanded a review.
Mr McCain, who lost to Mr Obama in last year's presidential election and is the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called the incident an "Air Farce One photo op."
The report of the review said ultimately Mr Caldera did not notify relevant White House officials about the flyover in advance.
It said: "When asked why he failed to do so, he did not offer a coherent explanation. He stated that it was not a conscious decision - he did not intend not to notify them. Instead, he suggested that it may have been an oversight."
Also released was a photo of the Air Force jet over the State of Liberty from the mission.
Mr Gates, providing details demanded by Mr McCain in the wake of the incident, said the cost of a jumbo jet that is used as the president's plane, Air Force One, was estimated between $300,658 and $328,835.
The cost of two accompanying F-16 jets was $28,177 for a total of $357,012, Mr Gates said.
But my spider-sense is tingling. Hmmmmm. What if it really was an attempted terrorist attack and not a photo-opportunity? What if there were terrorists on board the plane but they were thwarted at the last minute? What if the jet was there to blow it out of the sky? What if the resignation is just part of the cover-up, so that the American people don't realise how close they came to another major terrorist attack? See, there's the problem... Govenments lie so often that we no longer believe a word they say....
Either way, it'd be a great book. Just gotta work out how I can get Spider Shepherd on Air Force One!
How Seedy and Corrupt Is Our Government?
The following news broke today. You couldn't make it up. It's hard to imagine how our Government could be more corrupt than it is. And the way they lie and lie when they get caught out! What Jack Straw did seems to be close to fraud. And yet again we see Peter Mandelson playing word games to try to get out of trouble! Mandelson's appointment to the House of Lords was pretty much the last straw for me....
It's a small protest but I'm going to cancel my electricity and gas contracts with EDF and sign up with British Gas. I'll save money too!!
Members of the Cabinet have been defending themselves following the Daily Telegraph's decision to print details of their expense claim receipts.
Gordon Brown paid his brother for cleaning services, it has been reported Among the expenses detailed by the Telegraph were Gordon Brown's payment of £6,577 for cleaning work between 2004 and 2006 to his brother Andrew - a senior executive at EDF Energy.
There are also two payments of around £150 in successive months for the same piece of plumbing work.
Justice Secretary Jack Straw is said to have claimed for the full cost of council tax back even though he received a 50% discount from his local authority. He repaid the money last summer, shortly after a High Court ruling requiring the receipts to be published.
There is Business Secretary Lord Mandelson's claim for thousands of pounds for work on his constituency home in Hartlepool after he had announced his resignation as an MP.
Communities Secretary Hazel Blears claimed for three different properties in a single year, spending almost £5,000 of taxpayers' money on furniture in three months. Foreign Secretary David Miliband spent hundreds of pounds on gardening at his constituency home.
Chancellor Alistair Darling changed his official "second home" designation four times in four years. Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon switched his second home in a way which allowed him to improve his family home in Derbyshire at taxpayers' expense before buying a London townhouse.
Although there is no allegation that any of the ministers broke parliamentary rules, the report is certain to raise further concerns over MPs' £24,000-a-year second home allowance.
A spokesman for the Prime Minister said that Mr Brown and his brother shared a cleaner at their two flats. Andrew Brown paid the cleaner and the Prime Minister reimbursed his share of the cost. The double claim for the plumbing bill was an "inadvertent error" by Mr Brown's office and the cash was repaid as soon as it came to light.
A spokesman for Mr Straw said he himself spotted errors in his claim for council tax and repaid the difference. A spokesman for Ms Blears said that all of her claims had been approved as being in line with the rules. Lord Mandelson's spokesman said: "The expenditure on his home was to repair it, not improve it. To create a different impression is not honest."
It's a small protest but I'm going to cancel my electricity and gas contracts with EDF and sign up with British Gas. I'll save money too!!
Members of the Cabinet have been defending themselves following the Daily Telegraph's decision to print details of their expense claim receipts.
Gordon Brown paid his brother for cleaning services, it has been reported Among the expenses detailed by the Telegraph were Gordon Brown's payment of £6,577 for cleaning work between 2004 and 2006 to his brother Andrew - a senior executive at EDF Energy.
There are also two payments of around £150 in successive months for the same piece of plumbing work.
Justice Secretary Jack Straw is said to have claimed for the full cost of council tax back even though he received a 50% discount from his local authority. He repaid the money last summer, shortly after a High Court ruling requiring the receipts to be published.
There is Business Secretary Lord Mandelson's claim for thousands of pounds for work on his constituency home in Hartlepool after he had announced his resignation as an MP.
Communities Secretary Hazel Blears claimed for three different properties in a single year, spending almost £5,000 of taxpayers' money on furniture in three months. Foreign Secretary David Miliband spent hundreds of pounds on gardening at his constituency home.
Chancellor Alistair Darling changed his official "second home" designation four times in four years. Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon switched his second home in a way which allowed him to improve his family home in Derbyshire at taxpayers' expense before buying a London townhouse.
Although there is no allegation that any of the ministers broke parliamentary rules, the report is certain to raise further concerns over MPs' £24,000-a-year second home allowance.
A spokesman for the Prime Minister said that Mr Brown and his brother shared a cleaner at their two flats. Andrew Brown paid the cleaner and the Prime Minister reimbursed his share of the cost. The double claim for the plumbing bill was an "inadvertent error" by Mr Brown's office and the cash was repaid as soon as it came to light.
A spokesman for Mr Straw said he himself spotted errors in his claim for council tax and repaid the difference. A spokesman for Ms Blears said that all of her claims had been approved as being in line with the rules. Lord Mandelson's spokesman said: "The expenditure on his home was to repair it, not improve it. To create a different impression is not honest."
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Finishing The Book
I'm heading back to London tomorrow and then over to Dublin to finish the new Spider Shepherd book. I've just hit 54,000 words so I'm a bit behind schedule but it's flowing well so a few weeks locked up in my Dublin flat with no distractions should break the back of it! Speaking of distractions, here's the view from my favourite barstool in Big Dogs Bar at the entrance of Nana Plaza in Bangkok. If I sit there long enough then sooner or later I'll see everybody that I know in Bangkok!
Monday, May 4, 2009
On Pattaya Radio
I was in Pattaya over the weekend, partly to watch the Pattaya Rugby Tens and partly because I'd been asked to appear on the local cable TV station with presenter Johnny Diamond. Johnny also has a radio show so we killed two birds with one stone. It was good fun, especially as my mate Dave Collier, who runs the Canterbury Tales Cafe And Bookstore came along. Dave sells a lot of my books, especially Private Dancer!
I was impressed with Johnny Diamond's name, but I'm sad to report that it's not real. I am so lucky that Stephen Leather is my real name... it looks good on the cover of a book and puts me next to Le Carre and close to Ludlum on the bookstore shelves. Most people assume it's a made up name! Once when checking into an hotel in Los Angeles and I said my name was Leather and they asked me if that was my first name or my family name!
Johnny Diamond (Clive!), Dave Collier, and Me!
Oh, and somebody else wants to give me millions of dollars. This time it's an Arab, which is a nice change from Nigerians I suppose! His name is Ahmed Farid Abdula and I think I'll use him as a character in the new book... a mad suicide bomber perhaps!
UN Refugee Office, Cairo
2 Dar el-Shifa Street, Garden City, Cairo
Postal address: POBox 227, Cairo, Egypt
Reply at khadijajassim@egyptmailserver.com
Sir,
With warm heart I offer my friendship and greetings and I hope this mail
meets you in good time. However strange or surprising this contact might
seem to you as we have not met personally or had any dealings in the past,
I humbly ask that you take due consideration of its importance and immense
benefit. My name Ahmed Farid Abdullah. A supervisor at the United Nations
Refugee camp in Cairo. I arrived in UK in search of a prospective oversea
partner for an important business.
The current spate of bombings and crisis in the Middle East and Gaza has
triggered a mass exodus of people (or better say refugees) to Egypt.
I am in charge of the affairs of Iraq refugees in UNRWA Office, Cairo. I
am contacting I am contacting you in respect of one of the refugees in our
custody. I would appreciate if you could consider this offer both as a
business prospect and also as a form of assistance to someone in urgent
need of business assistance. A bomb blast killed almost an entire family
of Mohammed Jassim, a successful oil contractor in Baghdad. His 2 sons and
2 daughters all perished in this suicide bomb blast.
The only survivors in this gruesome murder are the wife and her newly born
child Mrs Khadija Jassim and . The reason why I am contacting you is that
Mrs Khadija Jassim managed with the help of the coalition forces to
smuggle herself and the little kid out of Iraq into Lebanon with the sum
of 9million United States dollars belonging to the late contractor.
We are seeking your help to receive this amount in your oversea account.
Mrs Khadija Jassim intends to invest and settle down in your country and
with the UN passport; she would be able to travel and accomplish this.
Please kindly accept this offer in good faith. I have worked out the
strategies of transfer and compensation. 60% of the total money shall be
reserved for the lady and her child, 30% shall be your compensation for
your assistance and 10% shall be for mapped out for all possible expenses
that shall accrue in the course of this transaction.
Due to the condition of the family we encourage maximum confidentiality.
kindly contact Mrs Khadija Jassim drectly at the email addresses:
khadijajassim@egyptmailserver.com
To ensure that your replies gets to her uninterrupted please also send
your reply to the fax numbers
Telefax: +20-3-399-1347 or
Facsimile: +20-23-536-5745
In your replies please ensure that you provide her your mobile phone
number as she would like to follow up our dealings with a telephone call.
After sending her your email message and fax please call me at
+44 7024093626
Thanks and have a wonderful day.
Ahmed Farid Abdula
PLEASE REPLY TO khadijajassim@egyptmailserver.com
Telefax: +20-3-399-1347
or Facsimile: +20-23-536-5745 and call me at +44 7024093626
I was impressed with Johnny Diamond's name, but I'm sad to report that it's not real. I am so lucky that Stephen Leather is my real name... it looks good on the cover of a book and puts me next to Le Carre and close to Ludlum on the bookstore shelves. Most people assume it's a made up name! Once when checking into an hotel in Los Angeles and I said my name was Leather and they asked me if that was my first name or my family name!
Johnny Diamond (Clive!), Dave Collier, and Me!
Oh, and somebody else wants to give me millions of dollars. This time it's an Arab, which is a nice change from Nigerians I suppose! His name is Ahmed Farid Abdula and I think I'll use him as a character in the new book... a mad suicide bomber perhaps!
UN Refugee Office, Cairo
2 Dar el-Shifa Street, Garden City, Cairo
Postal address: POBox 227, Cairo, Egypt
Reply at khadijajassim@egyptmailserver.com
Sir,
With warm heart I offer my friendship and greetings and I hope this mail
meets you in good time. However strange or surprising this contact might
seem to you as we have not met personally or had any dealings in the past,
I humbly ask that you take due consideration of its importance and immense
benefit. My name Ahmed Farid Abdullah. A supervisor at the United Nations
Refugee camp in Cairo. I arrived in UK in search of a prospective oversea
partner for an important business.
The current spate of bombings and crisis in the Middle East and Gaza has
triggered a mass exodus of people (or better say refugees) to Egypt.
I am in charge of the affairs of Iraq refugees in UNRWA Office, Cairo. I
am contacting I am contacting you in respect of one of the refugees in our
custody. I would appreciate if you could consider this offer both as a
business prospect and also as a form of assistance to someone in urgent
need of business assistance. A bomb blast killed almost an entire family
of Mohammed Jassim, a successful oil contractor in Baghdad. His 2 sons and
2 daughters all perished in this suicide bomb blast.
The only survivors in this gruesome murder are the wife and her newly born
child Mrs Khadija Jassim and . The reason why I am contacting you is that
Mrs Khadija Jassim managed with the help of the coalition forces to
smuggle herself and the little kid out of Iraq into Lebanon with the sum
of 9million United States dollars belonging to the late contractor.
We are seeking your help to receive this amount in your oversea account.
Mrs Khadija Jassim intends to invest and settle down in your country and
with the UN passport; she would be able to travel and accomplish this.
Please kindly accept this offer in good faith. I have worked out the
strategies of transfer and compensation. 60% of the total money shall be
reserved for the lady and her child, 30% shall be your compensation for
your assistance and 10% shall be for mapped out for all possible expenses
that shall accrue in the course of this transaction.
Due to the condition of the family we encourage maximum confidentiality.
kindly contact Mrs Khadija Jassim drectly at the email addresses:
khadijajassim@egyptmailserver.com
To ensure that your replies gets to her uninterrupted please also send
your reply to the fax numbers
Telefax: +20-3-399-1347 or
Facsimile: +20-23-536-5745
In your replies please ensure that you provide her your mobile phone
number as she would like to follow up our dealings with a telephone call.
After sending her your email message and fax please call me at
+44 7024093626
Thanks and have a wonderful day.
Ahmed Farid Abdula
PLEASE REPLY TO khadijajassim@egyptmailserver.com
Telefax: +20-3-399-1347
or Facsimile: +20-23-536-5745 and call me at +44 7024093626
Me and the Beatles. And Elvis, too!
Remind me to tell you about the time I hung out with The Beatles....
And about the time I met Elvis.....
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