October 12th, 2008 | 
Author: I’m sitting here in my north London lair, trying to enjoy a peaceful Sunday early afternoon, while outside a high-speed car chase is taking place, between what I am guessing is a stolen vehicle vs. a very low-flying police helicopter.
It’s like my very own personalised episode ITV’s “The Bill”, only with a higher production budget and better stunt men.
The car, a silver piece of crap, has sped past my front window several times, the driver apparently thinking that going in circles will confuse the chopper pilot and he will lose his tail in the sky.
It don’t work that way, homie!
The helicopter, which must cost a grand or two an hour to keep in the sky, has been flying so low that my house has been shaken and when I looked out my ground floor window and saw it, it was as if I could look in the pilot’s eyes. If my back garden wasn’t postage stamp sized, I would have thought he might have set it down on my patio, to continue the chase on foot.
This is modern life in the urban ghetto, welcome and enjoy your stay. If you can’t enjoy your stay, at least be heavily armed!
It’s worse at night, with the cop choppers, they use powerful spotlights, which when they hit your windows, can be quite startling. Perhaps they’re running surveillance at night, listening in on our phone calls and private conversations inside our homes. The technology exists to do all that, but does the will?
I was driving through my neighbourhood at night, a couple of weeks ago and I saw a large gang of kids being stop’n’searched by the local rozzers. The kiddies by my estimation, ranged in age from 12 to 15 years old and there were over 20 of them, with half a dozen cops doing the searching. Not great odds for the cops, if you figure all those children had weapons and the cops only had little sticks. This was taking place three minutes by foot from my front door. Cool, eh?
It’s gone quiet outside, finally. I don’t hear the chopper any more, though I am sure it will be back. It always comes back. I wonder if the guy in the silver piece of crap got caught.
Probably not.