Indiscretion

This morning I acted as scribe for the RadioNet User Group monthly meeting. There's not usually a meeting in August, so only half the usual number of people attended. During the meeting I raised a security concern of my own, arising from the televising of the parliamentary debate about social unrest after MPs had been recalled last week. Our local MP Jenny Willott was one of the earlier commenters to catch the Speaker's eye, complimenting South Wales Police officers re-deployed early to assist in quelling unrest - fine. But she couldn't resist mentioning how Cardiff and Sheffield had escaped civil unrest, and attributing this to superior city centre management. 

To say such things, whether true or not, seemed to me to be inviting challenges to peaceful order. Why mention these things before it was certain stability had been restored? I thought it indiscreet, tempting providence, and I discovered others at the meeting felt the same. The consensus was that it's best to say as little as possible about security issues until you're sure everything is as stable as it needs to be. Time to drop a note to our local MP I think. 

Our new local city centre 'Bobby' was at the meeting, PC Dave Sharp, sharing with us his enthusiasm for keeping regular local offenders in check. We certainly have some persistent problem people, beggars, thieves, hustlers, causing a lot of trouble. Given that removing one seems to make room for another, I wonder how long he'll be able to keep up the initiative? After the meeting I managed to get the framework of the minutes sorted before I had to go home. 

After lunch, I was picked up in a sumptuous new Funeral Directors' Jag and taken to 'the Rez' Parish Church in Ely to conduct a funeral service for a man a year younger than me who'd died of a brain tumor. He worked as a fitter on the railways all his life without taking sick leave, but after five years of retirement, an inoperable cancer developed and took his life in eight months. None of us know what lies ahead of us, do we?