A good day

Yesterday was the most wonderful day for my step-daughter and her new husband. The weather was perfect, the guest well behaved and the setting perfect. I can heartily recommend the Black Horse, Thurnham, Kent to anyone planning marrying a son or daughter off.

The happy couple.

I can't remember a wedding where everything went to plan... this one came close though. Even my speech produced a few laughs and an awful lot of groans at the puns used.
The evening do was brilliant too, no fights, no arguments just a lot of people from both sides of the new family having a hell of a good time.
We all ate too much, drank too much and danced too much.
Life truly is good some days...

Picking the wrong fight

One of the things I've learned in the school of hard knocks that constitutes daily living for most of us, is to pick very carefully the fights I get into with authority and figures of authority. if I do choose to go up against them, I make damned sure of the ground I'm standing on and whilst I'm not averse to helping out a losing (if just) cause I also know that sooner or later a situation might arise when it's time to call it a day and cut your losses.
It's a lesson some people never seem to learn.
BBC.

A private clamper accused of immobilising royal protection officers' unmarked cars acted "belligerently", a Hampshire court heard.

Gareth Andrews refused to removed the clamps despite the fact PC Mark Cox showed him his warrant card.

Mr Andrews, 39, of Privett Road, Fareham, denies wilfully obstructing a police constable in his duty.

The officers were protecting the Queen as she visited Portsmouth, the city's magistrates' court heard.

PC Cox told the court that because of Mr Andrews's "belligerence" he had no option but to arrest him.

The officers were both dressed in plain clothes during the operation on 25 May, having parked the cars at Gunwharf Quays marina.

Colin Shackel, prosecuting, told the court parking spaces allocated to the officers were temporarily being used by a delivery lorry so, after consulting security staff, they parked in adjacent spaces.

He said Mr Andrews had arrived and clamped the cars and refused to release them because he did not believe he was dealing with real police officers.

"By the time you have been shown a warrant card and security guards are involved, it would be clear to anyone that it was real officers who weren't just trying to avoid a clamping charge and had duties to perform," he said.

 Now sometimes it pays to take on the police/authorities when they are abusing their position to gain some sort of advantage either financially or through abusing their position, however trying to prevent the close support royal protection group by essentially immobilising their cars strikes me as a war you cannot possibly win.
I can only assume the years of abuse Gareth Andrews must have suffered as a clamper have inured him to what appears to be a suicidal tendency, not that I have much (if any) sympathy for a clampers seeing them as state/authority sponsored parasites operating on the fringe of legality and often enough taking advantage of those who were not aware of any restrictions on a parking space. That plus the fees they charge often enough amount to legalised blackmail. So all in all I'm fairly pleased the guy is getting his comeuppance.
Just a shame that the ordinary people in this country don't have similar means to make those who make our lives a misery a misery in turn.

Wuff Justice*

* Sorry, sorry, but too good a pun to resist.

I'm a great believer in people getting their just deserts when it comes to criminals, too many have had their lives made a misery so it's good to see that occasionally there's a bit of payback in the grand scheme of things.

Telegraph.

A knife-wielding robber's attempt to rob an off-license shop in Devon is thwarted by the owner's dog. 

Eve Watson, 55, and her six-year-old Staffordshire Bull Terrier, Cane, took on the intruder after he jumped over the counter with a Stanley knife demanding money from the till.

The shop owner fought back by grabbing a nearby craft knife, telling the robber, "so you like to play with knives, do you".

Mrs Watson then grappled with the robber and managed to pull down his hood, exposing his face to the CCTV cameras in the shop.

Her dog then joined in, biting the man between his legs before the intruder fled the shop empty-handed.

Well this day just keeps on getting better and better, amazingly enough she wasn't arrested for having a dangerous dog, nor was the dog dragged off to be put down.

Devon and Cornwall police praised Mrs Watson for her bravery and have now launched an appeal to find the culprit.

He is described as a white male, aged 23 to 25 with fair hair who has a thin, acne marked face and was wearing jeans and dark trainers.

Hopefully walking with a pronounced limp and unable to sire any children either (well we can hope)