In Enid Blyton's Noddy books is a policeman, PC Plod,
who is genial, public spirited and has a very positive
attitude.

These are unrecognisable characteristics of the police today,
and therefore to commend the police to adopt such characteristics, I
refer to them publicly as plods.

Which gives us in turn, ploddery for constabulary and
ploddity for their behaviours and cultures.

A few years back I lamented these thoughts in a poem ...

-----ooooo-----

€œThe Oddity Of Ploddity€�
Copyright © 4th November 2005 by Gareth Alun Evans

English people have a traditional view of their police forces,
based on the good-natured and efficient PC Plod of Enid Blytons
stories. Such a viewpoint is no longer true, and the ploddery
has degenerated into a self-seeking organisation dominated by
groupthink. The ploddery frequently break the very laws that
they are expected to enforce, seemingly without any awareness
of the absurdity of this behaviour, especially when they kill
pedestrians on zebra crossings whilst driving at 60MPH in a
30 MPH zone. There has been no consensus of Englishmen that
the ploddery should be habitually armed, yet this has become
a reality, with plods regularly passing the death sentence without
any comeback. Ploddity is, at the time of writing, a social
experiment that is only 150 years old. Perhaps it is time to
realise that it is a failed experiment?

I dedicate this poem to Jean Charles De Menezes who was
summarily executed at Stockwell Tube station by the
Metropolitan Ploddery with SEVEN (?) bullets to the head
on the 22nd July 2005.

Since when has the boarding of a Tube train been an offence punishable
by death?


Old England has a band of men
Who rule of law ignore,
Reducing towns down to a wen,
(Which decent folk deplore).

They think that they can do no wrong
And do not understand
The way their minds do not belong
In Englands civil lands.

From racing cars at quite a whack
Along the village road
And killing those on Zebras track
Whod thought a safety mode.

Bring death to men who ride the train
With shots right to the head.
More than enough, one, to the brain,
But seven lumps of lead?

And beating up the Irishmen
Until the poor men cracked.
To torture six from Birmingham
Confessions to extract.

Then kicking in the fragile door,
Suburban houses gate,
Upon a reason, very poor,
To terrorise your mate.

What IS the point of such a force?
They dont protect the man,
But break the laws they should endorse,
Instead the flames they fan.

Preposterous, were all aghast,
We find we tear our hair.
The oddity of ploddity
Drives men to a despair.

Just for a century and a half,
A bad experiment,
This ploddery is but a laugh
And bin-wards should be sent.