Thursday December 22, 2005

A dedicated man The second story in the omnibus I wrote about before is now read. This one is called A Dedicated Man. It is nowhere as good as its companion story Gallows View it is a bit slow and pedestrian for me. The story has Banks trying to find the murderer of a well liked man who is found dead partly buried in a dry stone wall in Yorkshire. As usual Bank finds himself fancying one of the main people in the book, this time a suspect. Only two murders and two many suspects. But despite this I am still looking forward to the other two omnibus books of Peter Robinson in the pile of unread books in the house.

Crime and consequences

Recent events in our village has led me to reconsider the threat of crime to ourselves and property. I think until you become a victim of crime you don't really think about it in the way you should - a bit like smoke alarms. We live in a quiet village, of course crime is there and our neighbourhood watch sends us a newsletter where crime events are listed in the area. I have made an effort to make our house less of a target the side gate triple locked, burglar alarm, replacement windows with locks etc. However an escalation of criminal acts has made us both reconsider how we protect ourselves.

Basically someone down our road was sitting in their house. The front door was unlocked. A burglar came in went to the kitched grabbed the purse of the owner and was out of their in seconds. An opportune event but clearly well planned. I then looked at how we leave things unlocked and open. Very often I used to get the car out and leave it unlocked ( not with the key in the car!) I no longer do this. Although the back door is behind the locked gate someone could with the help of a mate get a lift over the gate and they would be in the house as we used to leave the back door unlocked until we went to bed. We no longer do. We used to leave car keys, wallets and purses downstairs when we went to bed, no we take them upstairs. The local police have furnished us with UV pens and offered a house visit to advise on security matters..

So is this right to do this? Should we not be able to live our lives and leave doors unlocked as we did twenty, thirty years ago? Some of our friends would say we are wrong and acting like this means we are letting the criminals change our lives for the worst. But I disaagree. I never stopped going to the pub on Sundays even if it meant I was walking home in the dark and I could be mugged. I think however for a little careful behaviour you can avoid having your house robbed even though you never want someone else to be burgled instead of you...