In today's Telegraph (Fri 25 Feb 2005) there is an article on page 3 (not The Sun Page 3) telling of the latest PC fiasco. The Brigade had notified local police that a blacking up ceremony would be taking place outside of a local pub. It does sound rather as if the local plod was looking for something to occupy their time, so they came and videoed the local lads playing accordions with blacked-up faces
Nobody is certain as to the origin of the ceremony, but to further justify the waste of police time, the local boys in blue sent the video off to the Crown Prosecution Service. I suppose their aim was to give the CPS a bit of a laugh. Perhaps the Superintendent of Police had talked of cutting down on the local force and the inspector thought that to attend and photograph this heinous bunch of criminals would persuade his boss that they were, if fact, perusing a dastardly crime, and their numbers were not over-the-top. Perhaps they should holiday in Nottingham to hone up on their crime-solving abilities.
I have a theory that the blacking up ceremony may relate to charcoal burning
of yesteryear. There is a village close to Uckfield in Sussex where the
village and the local pub is called "Blackboy" in memory of the charcoal burners
of times long gone. Padstow may well have had lead smelting in the past,
necessitating coal (charcoal). (In Egyptian Arabic "coal" is charcoal whereas what we
call "coal", they call "stone coal" I am awaiting to
hear if the Uckfield pubs being investigated by the Serious Crimes Squad.
It appears to be government policy now to call a 15 month sentence a "life
sentence" (read the Sun Telegraph dated 26 March 2006)
Long live Political Correctness. It serves to demonstrate that the word "loon" still has a use in the English language.