Crime Does Actually Pay

I’ve always been a good boy.

Law abiding. Head well beneath the parapet. Not a toe out of line.

When the UK riots were kicking off my first thoughts were not to rush out and help myself to a nice new pair of orange bri-nylon Nikes and an iPad but to bemoan the state of the nation’s youth and to wish our boys in blue the best of British as they marched out to meet the semi-illiterate foe, wot ‘ad taken to the streets, innit, to protest about the interest rates, the war in Afghaniswotsit and the fact that they couldn’t, like, afford to buy all them widescreen plasmas wot get shown on The Gadget Show every week, you get me, bruv?

I stayed at home in my pinstripe and my bowler hat and waved my sober umbrella in middle-class outraged fury at the scenes of wanton damage being shown on my non-widescreen, fat, cathode ray tube telly. I was a good boy.

And that’s the problem.

In my current novel (and, indeed, in my previous one) the main characters have run foul of the law. They’ve had their collars felt. I’ve had to write a police interview / interrogation scene.

And in all honesty I have absolutely no first-hand experience of how these are actually conducted at all. My only reference points are film and TV but just how accurate is it to depict suspects having plastic bags held over their heads and then being kicked around a dusty evidence room by a furious Gene Hunt? Do the police still do that? Or does that just happen in the armed forces now?

Do the police still do the old good cop / bad cop routine?

Or is it all touchy feely now – calling in a gestalt therapy counsellor, a PTSD specialist, a pedicurist and a Swedish masseuse?

My wife assures me that the police are people too and, actually, unlike the portrayal of the force on the telly, most interviews are conducted in a very conversational manner. When I asked her how she knows this she made a quick excuse about being late for a community service appointment and hotfooted it out of the house as if she had a bag of swag under each arm. Most curious.

So anyway, I’m now wishing I’d pulled a bank heist or two when I was younger. Misspent my youth a bit. Nicked the odd car. Gun ran. Grew drugs at the allotment. Defecated on the carpet at Fortnum & Masons.

I’m now looking back on the summer’s riots in the UK and wondering if I missed an opportunity there.

Not for the sake of getting a widescreen telly.

But for the sake of my writing.

I’m sure the judge would have understood.

Don’t you agree?

iClaudius

With the advent of the iPhone, the iPod and the iPad I’m feeling the need to cash in on this bandwagon of “convenience technology” by throwing my own hat into the ring. I’d like to run a few ideas (or should that be: iDeas) by you just in case there are some enlightened iNventors or honest admin assistants at the Patents Office out there who’d be willing to take a gamble and make us both some money.

My first concept that is up for grabs is the iPub. Yes, the mobile pub in your pocket. Enhancing hologramatic technology you can have a virtual 3D pub in your pocket for the fraction of the price of a pint at Spearmint Rhino. Just toggle between Irish / East End / Corrie / Wine Bar / Polari for the ambience of your choice and let the flock wallpaper and the smell of urine and sawdust pixelate into HD being before your very eyes. With programmable jukebox music, Easter egg lock-in option and “Easy Lay” expansion software you need never have to suffer a miserable night in on your own again. Comes with a choice of 3 barmaid personalities: Keeley Hawes, Meryl Streep and Beryl Reid and warm beer (depending on how cool you keep your trouser pockets).

Concept no.2 is the iPrayer for those who want to bring their worship into the 21st Century. This little device comes complete with the religious icon (ha ha) of your choice and seamlessly integrates with all modern social networking sites – Facebook, Twitter, MySpace – and allows you to share your devotions and votive offerings with the world wide web. Why get on your knees and bang your head against a pew when you can email God or send him a Tweet or two? There is an optional Confessional mode for those of you with Catholic leanings – though be careful to run this in silent mode. For those of you with Old Testament sympathies the device also doubles as a sizeable and weighty stone that can be used to punish adulterers and those who have given their seed unto Molech. Device is waterproof up to 10 metres and comes with an easy-kleen screen.

Concept no. 3 is the iPimp and yes I am scraping the barrel here. Choose from over 50 accents to give your iPimp the national flavour of your choice – Eastern Bloc, South American, Cockney, to name but a few – and indulge yourself electronically in the seedy world of human trafficking. An advanced touch screen menu system will allow you to choose between violence or drug addiction as the method of controlling the merchandise or simply purchase an optional software upgrade that will give your iPimp a Huggy Bear “skin” and render all your transactions somehow fun and jocular and Carry On-esque without a word ever having to be said to the wise, know worrimean? The iPimp comes supplied with a his ‘n’ hers virtual reality enhancing body suit with over a million electronically fired neurone amplifiers to make your experience as real as possible. We recommend that customers buy the iPimp in conjunction with the iPrayer in order to make the most of the inevitable post-transaction feelings of guilt, remorse and self disgust and the need to absolve oneself of an emotional and moral stain.

Concept no. 4 is the iPrick. This tiny, tiny device... yeah, yeah, I think this joke has just about run its course now. If anyone from The Gadget Show is watching I’m available most evenings for interviews but please make sure it’s Suzi Perry and not Jason Bradbury. Ta.