Holy shit, a rational policeman

Given my recent run-ins with overly officious police, I thought I'd mention a counter-example that I met last night on the way to Blockbusters (me and duranorak watched Aristocats - she seems to have a bit in common with Marie).

I came out of my estate on the bike, and did my usual exuberant burst of acceleration up to about 90mph, at which point I noticed a police car pulling up to a side turning on the right some way up the road. I did the usual 'approved' manouevre in these circumstances, i.e. I shut the throttle and used the back brake to slow down gently, so that as I passed him I was doing a needle's width over 60mph (the speed limit on that road). He'd obviously seen and heard me doing far more than that though, so I couldn't resist giving him an ironic little nod of respect as I went past being a Good Boy. So then he pulled out behind me and started to follow me.

Fair enough, I think, he was going that way anyway. Actually, I thought "Oh bollocks", but anyway. I turned left at the next roundabout. He followed. I turned right into the estate. He followed. I turned left into the first poxy little side turning, deviating from my intended route. He followed. I pulled up and took my crash helmet off, to save him having to blue light me.

He pulls up alongside and says "It's okay, I was just having a look at your numberplate - you know it's not quite right, don't you." (it's got slightly non-standard lettering and is slightly under-size, as is fairly common on motorbikes but still definitely illegal if the police take a dislike to you). "Um, yes," I said "but it's readable, isn't it?". He looked at it again, then said "Yeah, it's readable. I noticed you doing a good old pace up the road there..." *heart sinks* "then you slowed down when you saw me, and I thought 'good old boy'..." *hope rises* "then I noticed the plate and just wanted to have a double-check... but yeah, you're fine. Ride safe."

"Thanks!" I said. And then he drove off.

Almost regained my faith in the police for a few hours there. Nice bloke.

Content. Both senses, again.

I should probably update with something other than quizzes and KoC spam slightly more often than I have been. I'm happy to say I've mostly been not updating for the good kind of reasons though - I've been spending a lot of my free time snuggled up with duranorak, hence not spodding. Well, I may have spent some (vast) amount of it playing Kings of Chaos too. I'm not used to winning at games, I seem to have got slightly obsessive about it now that I'm doing well  :)

My current answer to 'how are you?' is "It's sunny and I have a motorbike - life is good". It's amazing how much influence it does have on my mood just riding the bike around... by the time I get wherever I'm going, I'm generally happy - which is no bad state to be arriving at almost any destination. Work continues to be tedious, with the added pain and misery of having to be in by 10am (yes, I know, but to me it's early ok?), but just the fact that I get to ride my bike on the way here almost makes up for that horrible first hour of realising you're in the office for the day, again.

I'm currently lj'ing sporadically in the daytime, and using a text-mode web browser which isn't ideal. Hence formatting on my posts and comments might be a bit wonky, and I'm having trouble keeping up with my friends list. I may have to implement a filtered view at some point, but I'm resisting the necessity as long as possible because I like reading all the journals I read.

Anyway, better go do some more work now, so I can have that sense of achievement when I leave for the weekend...