As well as being a platform for JKers to have a good old rant about the world of technology and PR, 'Whatever...' will periodically be running guest blogs from friends who live beyond the (fire)walls of Johnson King Towers.
Here's Nick Booth, veteran tech freelancer and PR trainer, on the boys in blue and their problems through the years with technology...
In the late 70s, the Met Police launched Operation Countryman, an investigation aimed at rooting out all the bad sorts in the force, the 'bent coppers'.
These days, Scotland Yard recruiters seems to positively encourage homosexuals!
How times change.
They've got technology now to help implement these kind of schemes. Mind you, they still can't get it to work properly.
They've bought in a biometric passport in an attempt to stop criminals abusing the current system, but some German bloke has already learned how to hack it before most of us have even got one.
Computers were much better in the old days. I remember watching the Sweeney, where a young hacker (played by John Hurt!) managed to get into some freight distribution system. He typed this command into the screen (in big letters too, so all the viewers could read it clearly).
"Divert gold bullion lorry down to the docks, where henchmen lay in wait"
And immediately (immediately, not after the advertising break), the lorry changed directions, and headed off to some disused dockside wastelands.
You try and get a computer to do that these days!
Mind you, Regan and Carter caught up with them, and arrested the villains. (You try and get a PC to do that these days!!)
(We asked Nick who his friend was in the picture - he said, "This is me, with a robotic ironing machine, which I blagged off Siemens, when I was writing a supplement about Luxury Goods which went out with The Times. The machine blows hot air into the shirt, and smooths out all the wrinkles. And it only takes five minutes longer than ironing it.")
This is my second death threat this year! This sort of thing never happened
in the days of typewriters. Ah yes, journalism was much more dignified then.
Posted by: Nick Booth | 14 August 2006 at 12:11