Brickbat: The Informers

In England, officials with the Islington Council have placed extra police patrols outside the Andover Estate and apologized to some of the residents there. Council officials say they accidentally revealed the names, telephone numbers, and other personal information of those who had called in complaints about loud music, verbal abuse, and other anti-social behavior to those they accused. Ten of those accused have been banned from the area.

Brickbat Archives

Comments

[Whiterun Guard]

A licky boom boom down.

[Dagny T.]

Yup, my first thought too. You'd think the fact that it is impossible to understand the string of syllables that follows "informer" and precedes "a licky boom boom down" would theoretically make that song less of an earworm. Alas.

[Whiterun Guard]

It's true. Genius of that magnitude simply cannot be denied.

[Ted S.]

I thought it was "a chicky boom boom down".

[Some Chick from OH]

OT, but where else would I complain about this: Why, ever since the site's "upgrade", have I been getting "unresponsive script" warnings every time I open "HR"??

[Some Chick from OH]

(Apparently ampersands are verboten - that would, of course, be "H AND R".)

[invisible furry hand]

No idea. There's actually a dedicated email address for our complaints

[e-mail]

[Fist of Etiquette]

They could always let these people arm themselves for protection.

[Whiterun Guard]

But then the extra security guards would be out of a job. Why do you hate people having jobs.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Why? Because I simply feel that it's in everyone's - Hey, what's that over there?

[runs away]

[Whiterun Guard]

What?! Where? I don't see anyth...

Hey, wait a minute.

[Karl Hungus]

Hey, wait a minute.

I have no idea how many times you're going to fall for that, but it gets funnier every time you do.

[Pound. Head. On. Desk.]

They could always let these people arm themselves for protection.

(overblown highborn English accent)
Arm themselves? But Rupert, Eunice, Giles, it's just not done!
(/accent)

[invisible furry hand]

the upper-classes like their guns and have no problems with the lower orders having them too. Rupert and Giles would be bagging a brace in season - that's when they're not trying to break their necks hunting. It's the concerned Guardian-reading middle classes who think it's all yucky and, worst of all, American

[Karl Hungus]

Arm themselves? But Rupert, Eunice, Giles, it's just not done!

That's probably it in a nutshell. The British have allowed themselves to be convinced that they're too mean and stupid to be allowed guns. Here's a news story from last year about the uproar that occurred when a guy found a .22LR round lying in the street in York.

[Rich]

A STARTLED man has told how he found a ... live .22 bullet gleaming in a puddle.
... he immediately called police, who came and took it away.
... the bullet had been put into safe storage

The photos are correspondingly, um, DRAMATIC.

You can't fool *me*, Karl. That's from The Onion.

[Karl Hungus]

You can't fool *me*, Karl. That's from The Onion.

An Onion piece would've gone on to say that the area was cordoned off and swept by a hazmat team, and how grief counselors were called in to talk with terrified residents.

[Rich]

Or had a bomb-squad robot detonate the live gleaming terror in place and destroy the neighborhood.

[Mainer2]

The high school in Kittery Maine was on lock down and evacuated for the day a few years ago when someone found a couple .22 cartridges in the school. You'd think a kid in Maine would pick 'em up and think, cool, a couple free bullets for plinking this weekend. Instead, someone reports it and whoop...code orange !

[Bee Tagger]

Council officials say they accidentally revealed the names, telephone numbers, and other personal information of those

Did Twitter suspend the officials' accounts yet?

[Cdr Lytton]

What's the point of the extrajudicial ASBOs if the accused could confront their accusers?