More stories about UK police, the last letter is from an Austrian tourist who was stopped by police for taking pictures of a bus! That is just astounding. How do they decide which tourists to harrass, out of the millions of London tourists every year? What is their think? Do they just enjoy the power trip, or do they really believe they are doing their job?
I think that UK, similarly to the US, has some of the best of everything, and some of the worst of everything. The best music and the best writers. And the most hard-ass police and government.
When I was in London in 2005 shortly after the subway bombing and visited Downing Street (shut off by a huge fence, and guarded by police with machine guns), of the three or four people who took pictures only one was singled out by the cops. He was not as white as the rest of us.
ReplyDeleteIn 1987 I visited the former Soviet Union with my camera. Carried it around a lot, and only one time was asked not to take a photo. Not by the police, but by an old babushka (grandmother) who was embarrassed because people had to stand in line at a shop that had just gotten a food shipment.
ReplyDeleteWhat is going on in England? Is it really worse than the old Soviet Union?
What is going on in England? Is it really worse than the old Soviet Union?
ReplyDeleteEngland is the most big brotherish country in the history of human kind. There are one CCTV camera for every 14 people. East Germany's Stasi could only have dreamed of the surveillance facilities now installed throughout England.
I mention this because if the government can take unlimited pictures of the citizens, but the citizens (and tourists) can not snap a holiday photo of the iconic double-decker Routemaster bus, something is terribly wrong.
Luckily they haven't yet censored On the Buses: The Ultimate Collection. Now that's homage paid to old Routemasters. Not to mention a brilliant sitcom.
I'd get arrested every day there then. I'm a photographer and I shoot everything from studio table top advertising images to street images of people, buildings and shapes. The UK is purely a testing ground for public human tolerance, and the illumininati experiment is doing well there. Again - people don't revolt or get angry. And Limeys are especially well known for being cowards.
ReplyDeleteThere's beginning to be a really worrying trend...
ReplyDeleteI wonder... are UK police venting off a frustration from the abnormal national tolerance towards islamist pro-terrorism radicals? It seems to me like all these abuse incidents involve "properly White" european citizens. As if to compensate a pent-up anger against other taboo categories.
Even if it IS a natural phenomenon of psychological compensation, it's still very wrong. Police isn't meant for power-mad neurotics to legally bully honest citizens.
In theory, anyway!
"What is going on in England? Is it really worse than the old Soviet Union?"
You know what? Thank you for that comparison!
The UK is becoming like Egypt (with its loose islamists): a place that tourists will less and less want to visit!
France remains the most visited country in the world, anyway. The French might be chauvinistic and catastrophic in foreign languages, but they're still warm, welcoming, and dedicated to promoting and sharing their national treasures.
Visit France!
Or better yet, visit scenic Lebanon, if reading my blog hasn't deterred you too much. ;-) I'm still hoping to get a commission from the Ministry of Tourism if I can get us a few tourists through my candid advertising! Please? I need the money.
Have you read my post about the time I got into half-trouble for shooting a newsstand?
(And I don't mean "shooting", like, with a gun!!!)