Cornish Crimestoppers
There are people I know in Cornwall who don't lock their doors, even when they're out.
Erring on the side of caution/being extremely paranoid/being a little more savvy with the criminal mind having witnessed several unsavoury events in several cities around the UK, I am slightly less relaxed. Until buying a new car, on visits home from London I religiously put on the steering lock, hid any valuables and checked all the door handles several times before being able to sleep easily despite everyone in my family thinking I was weird. Now I insist on double locking Rhonda (and checking all the door handles several times despite the seemingly reliable central locking).
However, recent 999 reports in our local paper, the 'Cornish Times', are reminding me that perhaps I should remember that crime isn't as rife as my car-locking habits (and key hiding - oh yes) would imply.
It is true that not much happens news wise in Cornwall. It can't be easy to find enough pieces to fill the column inches of the local rag (I would describe them as news stories but there must be some criteria to qualify as being of interest to the general public and I'm not sure they always make the grade).
One memorable headline from the CT read 'Seagull lands on man's head'. You can pretty much get the gist of the story, although there were pictures, quotes and a whole story spun around the event. And that was front page stuff. The centre spread this week was a colour special on tractor demonstrations (it’s amazing what they can do).
The crime 'half page' is wonderfully no exception.
A choice excerpt from last week's 999 round up, in between a story of a small grass fire and a 'combine harvester call out' reads as follows:
Scarecrow Stolen
A SCARECROW dressed in a blue gym slip, fishnet stockings and suspenders has been stolen from Landrake.
Police in Saltash are appealing for information about the theft which occurred between 7:30-9pm on Friday, August 4. The scarecrow, one of the entries in the Cornish Times scarecrow competition is described as having long, plaited straw hair, a white hat, white blouse, fishnet stockings and suspenders.
Ignoring the fact that, yes, this is one of the key incidents dealt with by local emergency services that week, what fascinates me is the detail attributed to the scarecrow's description. Either they were trying desperately to fill space (the articles surrounding this story highlighted that crime wasn't exactly rife that week), had Work Experience Boy as editor or thought it was incredibly important to highlight not once but twice that the scarecrow (for yes this is an abduction of a man made of straw) was wearing fishnet stockings and suspenders.
This week, I was happy to discover equally lame reports of criminal activity in the region (although I do note that those owners of the scarecrow must have been deeply distressed by their loss and I apologise if my making light of such events has caused undue offence).
In summary, stories of note include 'Stretcher needed', a distressing four paragraph story of how a woman fell over and broke her leg and, yep you guessed it, needed a stretcher, 'Gorse blaze', a paragraph on how a gorse blaze was extinguished with a hose (incidentally this fire was a massive 6ft by 5ft, which was obviously measured by one or more dispensable members of the fire crew who were not holding the hose itself), and 'Tank Ruptures' which seemed a little more dramatic than its predecessors but happily unravelled to be a story about a water tank rupturing in someone's roof causing a leak at around 1pm last Friday in Torpoint.
Had my boyfriend and I informed our local paper in London about the leak that we experienced from our water tank I somehow don't think it would have achieved the three paragraph status that this was elevated to. I would be surprised whether they even stayed on the phone to hear the whole distressing story, however traumatised, cold and unclean we were.
Perhaps I shouldn't have laid awake wondering if I had in fact double locked the car, and didn't have to get up in the middle of the night to check that my keys were in 'my secret hiding place'. It is possible that, yes, I am a little anal when it comes to security, but better safe than sorry. After all, theft clearly does occur in these south westerly backwaters, although admittedly mainly to cross dressing straw men.
There are people I know in Cornwall who don't lock their doors, even when they're out.
Erring on the side of caution/being extremely paranoid/being a little more savvy with the criminal mind having witnessed several unsavoury events in several cities around the UK, I am slightly less relaxed. Until buying a new car, on visits home from London I religiously put on the steering lock, hid any valuables and checked all the door handles several times before being able to sleep easily despite everyone in my family thinking I was weird. Now I insist on double locking Rhonda (and checking all the door handles several times despite the seemingly reliable central locking).
However, recent 999 reports in our local paper, the 'Cornish Times', are reminding me that perhaps I should remember that crime isn't as rife as my car-locking habits (and key hiding - oh yes) would imply.
It is true that not much happens news wise in Cornwall. It can't be easy to find enough pieces to fill the column inches of the local rag (I would describe them as news stories but there must be some criteria to qualify as being of interest to the general public and I'm not sure they always make the grade).
One memorable headline from the CT read 'Seagull lands on man's head'. You can pretty much get the gist of the story, although there were pictures, quotes and a whole story spun around the event. And that was front page stuff. The centre spread this week was a colour special on tractor demonstrations (it’s amazing what they can do).
The crime 'half page' is wonderfully no exception.
A choice excerpt from last week's 999 round up, in between a story of a small grass fire and a 'combine harvester call out' reads as follows:
Scarecrow Stolen
A SCARECROW dressed in a blue gym slip, fishnet stockings and suspenders has been stolen from Landrake.
Police in Saltash are appealing for information about the theft which occurred between 7:30-9pm on Friday, August 4. The scarecrow, one of the entries in the Cornish Times scarecrow competition is described as having long, plaited straw hair, a white hat, white blouse, fishnet stockings and suspenders.
Ignoring the fact that, yes, this is one of the key incidents dealt with by local emergency services that week, what fascinates me is the detail attributed to the scarecrow's description. Either they were trying desperately to fill space (the articles surrounding this story highlighted that crime wasn't exactly rife that week), had Work Experience Boy as editor or thought it was incredibly important to highlight not once but twice that the scarecrow (for yes this is an abduction of a man made of straw) was wearing fishnet stockings and suspenders.
This week, I was happy to discover equally lame reports of criminal activity in the region (although I do note that those owners of the scarecrow must have been deeply distressed by their loss and I apologise if my making light of such events has caused undue offence).
In summary, stories of note include 'Stretcher needed', a distressing four paragraph story of how a woman fell over and broke her leg and, yep you guessed it, needed a stretcher, 'Gorse blaze', a paragraph on how a gorse blaze was extinguished with a hose (incidentally this fire was a massive 6ft by 5ft, which was obviously measured by one or more dispensable members of the fire crew who were not holding the hose itself), and 'Tank Ruptures' which seemed a little more dramatic than its predecessors but happily unravelled to be a story about a water tank rupturing in someone's roof causing a leak at around 1pm last Friday in Torpoint.
Had my boyfriend and I informed our local paper in London about the leak that we experienced from our water tank I somehow don't think it would have achieved the three paragraph status that this was elevated to. I would be surprised whether they even stayed on the phone to hear the whole distressing story, however traumatised, cold and unclean we were.
Perhaps I shouldn't have laid awake wondering if I had in fact double locked the car, and didn't have to get up in the middle of the night to check that my keys were in 'my secret hiding place'. It is possible that, yes, I am a little anal when it comes to security, but better safe than sorry. After all, theft clearly does occur in these south westerly backwaters, although admittedly mainly to cross dressing straw men.
posted by thewebstress at Monday, September 04, 2006
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