Walking the dog in the upper/wooded bits of Holland Park, I witnessed a scene.
On a deserted bit of path an old man was riding a bicycle, slowly, when out popped the plain-clothes park policeman.
He produced a badge form his pocket, in a folding leather wallet, type used by Dirty Harry or Starsky and Hutch.
The undercover park cop then proceeded to demand details from the old man, name, address etc.
Against the rules or not, I was just astonished at the idea of this undercover, deep-throat outfit busting old folk for getting some exercise. (The one thing I heard the old chap say with any clarity was, ‘there’s nowhere safe to take a leisurely ride,’ – to which the tree cop had not answer but, ‘It’s against the rules’.)
We may live in austere times, when proper cops, the ones fighting drug crime and terrorism, are facing the chop. But thank God we can still keep the plain-clothes wood detectives to smash those elderly two-wheeled n’ere-do-wells that blight our dells!
