Which character are you?

This article caught my eye this morning. It seems that some police forces are being trained to categorise members of the public with whom they come into contact according to their similarity to various better known members of the human race, such as, oh, you know, Jeremy Paxman, Lenny Henry, Madonna. Need I go on? Not only that, but they are trained to categorise themselves and adjust their mode of interaction with said member of public accordingly.
So. leaving aside the questionable assumption that Jeremy Paxman is 'motivated by respect' (Have they ever considered his interviewing style?), or the remote possibility that Madonna would ever be heard saying, "What time frame do we have on this?" I  wonder how on earth this is going to help any police officer in his/her daily round.
Can't you just imagine a Yorkshire copper adapting to cockney rhyming slang as he categorises half a dozen hoodies gathered in town on a Saturday night as 'text-book Michael Caines'?
"'Ere, no more pen an' ink for you, me laddos. Git back 'ome to the trouble an' strife, innit!" (With apologies to any real cockneys who happen to be reading this.)
Or how about dealing with some nefarious individual who has been identified as being in the Tom Jones category.
"Well, well, well,  noswaith dda, boyo! And what do you think you are doing here, isn't it? Whereto you think you are going to, then?"
However, worry no more about where your hard-earned taxes are going, especially if you live in South Yorkshire. They are simply  'looking to achieve a stronger customer focus culture, and as result have meaningful conversations with each other, with the end user – a victim of crime, offender, whoever it may be.'
Well, that's all-right then. Carry on, officers. 
Oh, and when they finally catch up with me, I want to be treated as a female equivalent of Lord Sugar - i.e. be grovelled to.

Hair today...?

There is a saying something along the lines of work expanding according to the time allotted to it and certainly I find that, the less I have on the agenda, the less inclined I feel to get on with it. I'm definitely not very good at self-motivation.

The weather has played its part over the last couple of weeks too, of course. I am sure we would all be a lot better off if we hibernated during cold, snowy, icy times, but it did rather put me off making an appointment at the hairdresser's, so my hair has been getting longer and more unkempt and I finally decided I needed to do something about it.

So, I did. The hairdresser was one who hadn't been let loose on my hair before, and she did cut it rather shorter than I expected, Still, it should mean that I won't need to go back for quite a while.

Heat!

Well, according to the weather site here on my blog, today's temperature is five degrees Celsius - yes that's PLUS five, not minus and tomorrow (drum roll here), wait for it, will be a heady SEVEN degrees! At that rate, I might even be able to discard my thermal vest!
Roll on summer.

Sulking

Something we said?

Keeping warm

The arrival of winter usually generates quite a few animated discussions in our house about whether or not the heating needs to be on and, if so, how low can it reasonably be. Keith is the 'nesh' one here and likes the heating to be on as much as possible. I, on the other hand, am protected at times by 'my own personal central heating' (ladies, you will know what I mean) and tend to turn it down whenever I can. If Keith is out, I don't have it on at all  but these days are different. Sub-zero temperatures mean that even I need some heating some of the time, so I have been putting on the living room fire when necessary.
Just one problem with this.

As you can see, Paddy is convinced that the fire is on purely for his benefit!

Keeping warm

This is Paddy, all set for his walk in his new coat. All he needs now are the boots.

Cold? Not yet

I have just seen this little gem courtesy of Daphne and I thought it was too good not to share. In particular, I forwarded it to Dad as I felt it was especially relevant to him. No, he's not from Newcastle but from Cheshire, although the philosophy is the same. He has been living in Bristol since the fifties but, has he succumbed to the soft, self-indulgent ways of them there southerners? No he has not!
In all those years, he has never once been seen without shirt sleeves rolled up and, in cold weather, the added indulgence of a sleeveless pullover until two years ago, when I bought him a long-sleeved pullover which he was persuaded to wear a few times. Since then it has resided in the airing cupboard until I reminded him of its existence (long since forgotten) a few days ago.
And then there is the duvet, not on his bed, of course, but tucked away in the spare bedroom.
("Well, it's not cold enough for it yet.")
That has now found its way into his bedroom but hasn't quite made it onto the bed. It's on the chair, waiting for the really cold weather to arrive.