What do you think of those new cardboard policemen?

[S. Heslop]

I'm getting sick of seeing this guy. Can't imagine they're very effective.

It's pretty insulting though, even to shoplifters. Like a scarecrow for people. I'm avoiding shopping at places that employ them since it really shows how lowly they think of their customers.


While i'm at it, I may as well complain about those stupid counterfeit pens that've become popular too. As far as I know they work on the principle that starch turns black in the presence of iodide salts (they might've changed since I last read about them though). This of course assumes that counterfeiters have produced a fantastic fake bank note that includes the metallic strip, watermark, microscopic lettering, fluorescent ink, and a hologram. But they goofed up and used the cheapest paper going.

[Bluechip]

New ?? Been around for several years.

No. I don't see they're much use either. Who would want to pinch crisps anyway?

Kettle Chips maybe ... 

Dave

[PekkaNF]

To me it looks like an insult to police force. Some poor sod thinkking that a small sad looking cardboard manequin would somehow compare with real thing.

Serious OT: My daughter had a good laugh when she visited London and a patrol car rushed to a doughnut shop, parked really sloppy and huriedly and officers walked to order some doughnut.... that must have been a really serious emergency of sugar deficiency.

Pekka

[Arbalist]

Not actually seen one in the "cardboard", so to speak! 

[Chuck in E. TN]

Bet they only catch cardboard shoplifters...
Chuck

[75Plus]

In the picture it appears that the Cardboard Cop is blocking access to a fire extinguisher. Wonder what H&S would think about that? 

Joe

[Bluechip]

Maybe only a cardboard fire-extinguisher ??? 

Dave

[DMIOM]

We have several officers known as "PC Flat" attached to the roads policing unit here in the IOM. They stand (very still!) at the side of the road, clad in hi-viz, with laser speed-gun in hand, sometimes for days on end. They're usually deployed at accident blackspots and do have some deterrent effect, but they also exploit human weakness because - sometimes - not far afterwards, when drivers think "oh, that was a con, I can press on now" there will be a real bobby with a real radar gun issuing real speeding tickets.....

They weren't off-the-shelf, they're actual recognisable local officers! pic here

[Eugene]

I think that cardboard cut out Rozzer would be very effective warning indeed; I bet salty, fatty, crisp sales have taken a right dive, with a big increase in the wellbeing of the shop customers. The subliminal message is clearly "Eating this crap turns you into a grumpy looking middle aged fat dwarf". Never seen one round here ... too many thrifty folks with woodburning stoves in these hills.

Eug

[Bluechip]

Eug.

Probably better off scoffing the crisps ... wood-burning chucks out much the same carcinogens as tobacco.

Some Scandinavian research is producing data that is somewhat alarming apparently. They had gas analysers in homes with such stoves and didn't like the results.

Dave.

[awemawson]

Wood burning stoves or open fires?

Stoves should put negligible nasties into the room in which they reside as overall the air flow is into them and up the chimney.

[Bluechip]

Andrew

Stoves apparently AFAIK. Main problem is wood that is not properly dried with bark/moss/lichen on it.

I don't have one so I wasn't much interested. Source was a mate who is a CEng. and RICS [?] who is involved with such amongst other things ...

Although he's not 'chartered' enough to put a bolt in his mower without cross-threading it I might add..    so maybe he can safely be ignored ... 

Dave

This might be a slanted reference to such goings on but it appears to refer to external air ??

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1354387/Wood-burning-stoves-cause-cancer-heart-disease.html

Dunno ... to clever for the likes of me for sure ...

[Eugene]

Nah,

"The secret of woodburners is dry sticks" quote from Nigel The Builder who installed mine, and he's right. Anything damp will blacken up the front glass and thus block a lot of the radiant heat, so you make sure the wood has been well dried before using it. The only health hazard I see is from burning Tanalised or otherwise treated timber; that must put a certain amount of Copper / Chrome / Arsenic compounds into the environment. Mind you they can't be all that bad, I've still got a splinter of decking in my bum and it's been there for a couple of months. 

Eug

[Bluechip]

I've still got a splinter of decking in my bum and it's been there for a couple of months. 

Eug

We don't believe you .... 

 

Dave

[Fergus OMore]

Wasn't it Longfellow who wrote
 'But  tis ashwood wet or dry
fit for a queen to warm her slippers by'

or don't people learn poetry now?

And this policeman thingy?  Old as tea. I recall one that used to stand on the road into Lermoos in Austria until it disappeared. That was about 20 years ago but there is another there now.
It was sort of looking at me as I tanked the Audi up for the return over the Rhine and into France and home.

The earlier one disappeared having being nicked. Actually, it went home to England--- and into- wait for it - an English 'nick'. Twas a lady rozzer wat did it me'lud

[hermetic]

I find cardboard policmen are generally very poor conversationally, not even being able to come out with the usual Peeler vernacular like "OI YOU!" "You're NICKED SUNSHINE" or the old chestnuts like "Allo Allo allo" and "whats all this then" or even the well known police h ouse adress in "Letsby Avenue"

 The stuff about woodburners giving you cancer is also a load of bull ox, burning ANYTHING releses carcinogens, the trick is NOT TO BREATHE THEM!! You are at far greater rsk of "inhalations" jogging beide a busy road than you are sat in front of a burning wood fire, as someone has already said, it all goes up the chimney. OK THEN it goes into the atmosphere, and we breathe it, but it just goes to prove that we should all burn wood on stoves with ample top air supply that turns all the unburnt gasses into carbon dioxide. Humanity has been burning wood for how long?