Motes and beams
I tell you what's offensive: X-Factor. Police corruption. Ias Hislop (the smug little twat).
Maybe you don't agree with me: Maybe you think Paul Merton's more of an offensive twat what with him being an ex-alcoholic who got on his high horse about someone else taking cocaine. Well that's your prerogative. For me Hislop's face is nothing more than an anus on legs, an affront to humanity, a festering pox on the world. I'm willing, however, to embrace the idea that what offends you may not offend me (and vice versa). Offense is subjective and making laws about matters subjective is a great way to tie yourself in legal knots, make a fool of precedent and make yourself look like a proper mental cripple.
As Steve Hughes pointed out when you're offended nothing happens. Your legs don't fall off, demons don't fly out of your backside, the milk doesn't turns sour - you just get butthurt for a while then you gather yourself and carry on. Or you avoid watching Have I Got News For You. Or you accept the fact that someone else's private conversation - a conversation in which you took no part - isn't exactly to your taste, chalk it down to experience, admit that it's non of your damn business, then fuck off and live your life.
Kent Police seem to believe differently. They seem to believe that private conversations are public property. Perhaps, therefore, they should put their money where their is and publish transcripts of all conversations carried on in all Police Stations in Kent, of all conversations carried on between policemen and anyone else they come into contact with, of any and all paper, email, fax, text or pager transmissions involving their staff. See, when someone gets nosey about me I tend to get even more nosey about them because it's usually the nosey parkers who are hiding something.
So what /are/ Kent Police hiding?
The fact that they've taken officers off the beat to look for shopping trolleys? (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1322269/Kent-Police-taking-bobbies-beat-hunt-dumped-shopping-trolleys.html)
The fact that they've illegally stopped and searched people? (http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2010/06/453272.html)
That they've interefered in the democratic process? (http://www.alanwcollins.co.uk/2010/08/27/river-kent-police-must-answer-for-their-interference-in-the-democratic-process.html)
That they've had some security breaches? (http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=3227636)
What else are they hiding, and what are the CPS intending to do about that?