Police overstretch?

With the terrible news of the fatal shooting of a PC and the wounding of another, early reports indicate that both of them were probationers. Without wishing to speculate on the bearing that this could have had on the sequence of events, I am surprised to hear that two probationers were out on patrol together. Surely a probationer would always accompany a more experienced officer as has been my understanding from various contacts in the police.

[edited 20/11/05]

Crap art

Last week's Observer featured an interview with the waspish but erudite Brian Sewell in which he offered the observation that:

"We pee on things, we pee into things, we pee over things... and call it art."

As if picking up the gauntlet, today's Guardian reviews the latest "offering" from Chris Ofili, namely

"... two monumental sculptures of a man and a woman baring their bottoms. Behind them are two snake-like turds, one blue and the other silver."

Back in 1998, Chris Ofili's Turner Prize winning picture incorporated clumps of elephant dung. This particular school (or perhaps nursery would be a more appropriate term) of art provoked Brian Sewell into a typically eloquent condemnation of it as

"... mind-numbing triumphs of idiot industry, and their concentrated tedium is in no way relieved by the random application of pachydermal turds … I am sick of shit in art: has no one in authority the courage to resist it and the infantilism that promotes it."

Seems like the answer to that rhetorical question is a resounding "no".