Week Seven
Now, I wouldn’t presume to say that the days I have felt particularly stroppy are directly linked to diversity training but it strikes me as a little more than coincidence that the two have come hand in hand so far. I was feeling very tired and volatile on Wednesday of this week, which, although it is likely this was largely due to being up until the wee small hours of the morning completing an IRB (Arrest book) that we had been given for homework, we did have one, of apparently four more to come, hits of diversity!
In a week where we had a huge amount to cover on traffic amongst other things, a 1 and a half hour lesson entitled, “Burglary from a South Asian Perspective” on the timetable, did not fill me with enthusiasm. Actually, all that happened, as before, was one of the Asian chaps, who had already been in to see us, sat there again and told us how he didn’t really like the police and his friends had no respect for us. I am not entirely sure what we were supposed to get out of this lesson but I don’t think I was alone in feeling that the time could have been better spent elsewhere. Don’t get me wrong, I am not implying the diversity training / discussion wasn’t important, it was, and I think, is, very much a key part of policing in the Metropolitan Police District but we’ve covered it now, I wasn’t entirely sure it was necessary the first time round, and I’m quite certain another 4 sessions aren’t needed!
I already believe that I treat people of ALL races, sexes, religious backgrounds and age in a polite, helpful and friendly manner, often without even noticing the colour of their skin, so to constantly have this at the forefront of nearly everything we do is slightly insulting and quite frustrating. Interestingly, the staff seem to share our sentiments exactly but the timetable is out of their control really. It is decided by the government and to a large extent, I think some of things that pop up on the timetable lend themselves to a bit of arse covering and often are also kneejerk reactions to isolated incidents.
The week, all in all, was not a pleasant one. I spoke last week about the Dreaded Traffic that was coming. The White Notes were pretty immense but I worked so hard this week to get through them and to get on top of the subject. In truth, for the first time, I actually really enjoyed doing the first of many batches of White Notes on traffic because the legislation is very black and white. There was a hell of a lot to get through and a hell of a lot of bitty points to remember but essentially, it isn’t complicated stuff, it was just a question of drumming it all in to my poor, overworked pea-brain.
We knew that this week’s exam, Week 7, was well renowned for being one that people fail and we knew that the exams get harder for about the next 5 weeks. So, at the beginning of the week, I was nervous about the exam, which should have been almost entirely on Burglary and Traffic but I worked so hard this week, to the point where meal times and sleep times were being compromised, to get the various anomalies surrounding Document Production, Fixed Penalty Notice Issuing, what you can and can’t do on a Zebra crossing if you are a horse and cart but not a pedal cycle etc. that by the end of the week, come Friday morning, I walked in to the exam feeling very confident and as though I had this exam in the bag. What, pray, was all the fuss about! Until now, each week’s exam has consisted of about 80 – 90% of the new subject area and the remainder has been made up of various pot luck questions (none on Cheesy Pop Stars from the 80s, sadly) from any of the weeks leading up to the current week. Therefore, as I say, I thought I had this one covered, and I knew I deserved to do very well in this one. So, imagine my dismay when I go through the exam questions to discover that a measly 2 are on Burglary and 3 on Traffic! I couldn’t believe it, the expression ‘gutted’ is the only way to describe how I felt really. It was like studying two years for a Biology A-Level, only to discover you had to sit a French A-level instead.
I take the point that we need to know everything we have covered before, I really do, but a few of us had tried to squeeze so much of the traffic in to our heads that other stuff had temporarily left our brains and whereas normally I would spend a few hours refreshing my memory on older subjects, the volume of work we had this week meant that there just wasn’t time. Even worse, not only were the 35 questions remaining NOT on the two topics I knew inside and out, they were all very woolly, fluffy questions that were taken from those tiny sentences with not even a sniff of an objective in sight and, therefore, they probably wouldn’t have appeared in my White Lined Notes of the White Notes anyway.
What I am trying to get across is that I think I failed the exam! This isn’t me being hard on myself, I am fairly confident from knowing the questions that I got wrong and the questions that I got right, my percentage can only realistically fall somewhere between 65 and 75%, so I am hoping to flukily sneak through but I am preparing myself for the worst. In my entire life, I have never actually failed an exam before so I know this isn’t something I will take well. In a way though, I can almost see the funny side of it today and the fact that I am so distraught about failing the first ever major thing in my life amuses me slightly (not as much as Bart farting in class, but it does amuse me). Some might like to call it character building and under the glass half-full umbrella, I am going to try to see it as exactly that.
I got 80% for last week’s KEE, so whilst I wasn’t ecstatic with this result, I do appreciate that the exams get harder and harder as time goes on so I am trying not to be too hard on myself.
So, this week, we covered the legislation of Stop and Search, Possession of Offensive Weapons, Possession of a Bladed or Pointed article, Going Equipped to Steal, Misuse of Drugs Act and lots and lots of traffic. Ask me anything you want on driving documents, when I can’t issue a Fixed Penalty Notice and not complying with signs or signals offences and I will have your answer! Ah, let’s not forget the other two important topics we covered, Burglary from a South Asian perspective and then there was Manual Handling. In fact, there were three hours of Manual Handling. Seemly the subject warranted as much time as an entire week’s worth of traffic notes but there you go. Again, a government initiative, and this one really was an arse covering exercise. The three hours of Manual Handling training covered how to pick up a box correctly. I now know how to pick up a box correctly anyway, so that’s good, isn’t it. And I know that if I pick it up wrong and injure my back, I can’t sue the Met because they showed me the correct way to pick it up.
Oh, I almost forgot, we also did our first stint on Handcuff training this week. Let me tell you, those things hurt. We learnt two techniques of how to put them on, the front stack and the back to back. After practicing these techniques for three hours, we left the Officer Safety marquee quite bruised, grazed and battered - potential criminals beware.
An interesting thing I learnt yesterday actually, when covering the legislation on Possession of a Bladed or Pointed article in Public was that something I quite frequently do, had I been stopped by a police officer I could and I stress, could, as in reality, I think it is unlikely it would happen, but I could have been arrested for it. The legislation basically makes it an offence to carry a bladed or pointed article in public EXCEPT a folding pen knife, like a Swiss Army knife, in a public place without lawful authority or good reason (there is more to it than that, but that is the basics). Now, you know those folding corkscrews, the ones that look a little bit like this:
Well, I often meet friends for a picnic in the summer and then just forget to remove the corkscrew from my bag and leave it in there for months. Now, a valid defence for this offence is NOT, “I forgot it was in there, officer”, and whilst I could justify carrying it with me in Hyde Park, I can’t really justify having it with me in Inferno’s (my favourite nightclub in Clapham) on a Saturday night. Needless to say, I will be making sure I don’t carry such pointed articles around with me in the future.
It struck me that Hendon Food has got off incredibly lightly throughout the course of my blog and I feel I can’t continue blogging any longer without a mention of it and believe me, it has clearly worked very hard to feature on my blog. If you like chips, you’re gonna love the Hendon Food here but if you like a bit of variation and perhaps even a sniff of a real, or indeed frozen or tinned, vegetable, I am afraid you would be searching in the wrong place if you came looking here. The food is becoming quite unbearable and thank the good lord above that every other week, when we are on early turn, we can eat at Mill Hill, where the food is actually really nice and the staff are absolute diamonds.
So, another week over and on to Week 8. What delights does next week bring? Well, Tuesday is going to be very tough as we have our first two SEEs (role play exams) that count and we are obviously all very nervous about this. Hopefully, they will go well for everyone. We have our first written exam on Wednesday and then another KEE on Friday, on, your guess is as good as mine. We will also be covering Criminal Damage, Racially Aggravated Incidents, some more Emergency Life Support, some more handcuffing, a bit more traffic and that will take us nicely to the end of the week.
That’s it for another week, I hope all is well outside Hendon World. Thank You and Good Night…
