Jobot

Woo, I ran it in 1:06:46! I'm quite pleased, but I'd like to get faster.
Of course when I got home my Dad seriously asked me whether I'd won. Even though there were 25,000 runners, including professional athletes.
I beat one of my policing buddies, but my friend Katherine SMASHED me with her time of 00:59:45. lowlowprices was there at the finish to wipe the salt crystals off my face, thus stealing my minerals.

Ok, I'm running the British 10k London run on 6 July for RNIB and I have vowed to raise at least £150. Some police friends are running, too, and I hope to SMASH THEM! Please help me out by donating anything, from £2 to £1382947 billion, on:
http://www.justgiving.com/joannalipkowska



Thank you!

Plus so much more! It is all on my Flickr page, and on facebook.

Check out our crops! In the foreground there is lettuce, radish and rocket; beans are out of sight to the right; further away there are pumpkin plants; and far away on the right there are sunflowers.


These babies are still in the nursery. They are mostly cucumbers, but there's also tomatoes, lemongrass and something that grew when I planted a mystery bean that I found in the shed.


Saul is like, "Like my radish? Call me on 0800 *** ****"

We went out for my mum's birthday and my dad got trolleyed and terrorised us all. Here he is telling Ashley about his ideal night out, which would involve a lot of richly carved furniture and public indecency.

I was gardening with lowlowprices the other day when I accidentally fetched one of these babies out of the composter, together with some mulch:


It was a MASSIVE STAG BEETLE! About 3 inches long! And it reared itself up and waved all its feelers and legs around. Majestos. It would NOT be funny if (a) lowlowprices hid one in my bed or panties (b) it suddenly flew towards my face, but maybe it would be a bit funny if I hid one in his underwear drawer. No no, it wouldn't, it really wouldn't. Plus you should never play with insects.

Hai! I had a lovely time on the beat yesterday. I can't imagine anywhere I'd rather police than Soho. We rescued tourists from clip joints, tried to control a crowd of Daniel Radcliffe fans, searched a suspected mugger, busted some illegal hot dog trolleys and dealt with a fight between a group of hot dog sellers and a group of youths. There were about 12 angry dudes and just the two of us trying to separate them. It was very exciting when my colleague called for back-up and suddenly there were flashing blue lights and policemen everywhere. We arrested someone for affray. Mostly we were giving directions and letting tourists take photos of us, but every now and then we got a call for assistance on our radios and had to run somewhere, though it was generally over when we got there.

Yesss! Now I am a policeman! Yesterday we had our attestation ceremony and were given our warrant cards. My new favourite thing is to flash it furtively at tube station attendants (it entitles us to free travel, you see. AND to a discount at Nando's!) At the pub afterwards, I got a laminated certificate declaring me Class Lady (proud). Ah, I hope all the classmates meet up against soon - what a nice bunch of dudes. And all our teachers were funny and kind. Hopefully I'll be out on duty on Friday night, so if you're planning a crime spree in West End Central then, bear in mind that your arrest might not be as smooth and seamless as usual.

I just got a Flickr account!
Mum: "Promise you'll be a good boy, Alfie."


Four-year-old Alf. Ah, that's my special little boy!


Here's a couple of pictures from yesterday's trip to Gaz's Rocking Blues at the St. Moritz club. lowlowprices munching on strictlytrue's ear:



And our colleague, Nick:

Police school is very fine at the moment. I have my police uniform stashed under my bed, and we've spent the past four weeks in the police gym stabbing each other with rubber knives, beating each other with foam batons, spraying each other with CS canisters full of water and generally wrestling each other to the floor and shouting things like "YOU HAVE BEEN SPRAYED WITH CS!", "GET BACK!", "GET DOWN!", "BACK OFF!" etc. I liked it the other day when we had to restrain each other on the floor and then administer care and reassurance to the "suspect". All I could think of to say is, "don't worry, you're being arrested. We'll get you to hospital." Then I giggled for about 20 mins.

We were sprayed with CS, which was quite interesting. Unfortunately I react quite badly to it, so as well as having bogey flowing freely down my face and being unable to open my eyes, my skin is very irritated and blotchy for ages afterwards, making me unattractive to boys. (brave, stoic).

My friend Kim forwarded this to me, and it did make me laff:


All of these are legitimate companies that didn't spend quite enough time
considering how their online names might appear - and be misread!

These are not made up. Check them out yourself.


1. "Who Represents" is where you can find the name of the agent that
represents any celebrity. Their Web site is www.whorepresents.com


2 . "Experts Exchange" is a knowledge base where programmers can exchange
advice and views at www.expertsexchange.com


3. Looking for a pen? Look no further than "Pen Island" at
www.penisland.net


4. Need a therapist? Try "Therapist Finder" at www.therapistfinder.com


5. There's the "Italian Power Generator Company" at www.powergenitalia.com


6. And don't forget the "Mole Station Native Nursery" in New South Wales,
http://www.molestationnursery.com/


7. If you're looking for IP computer software, there's always
http://www.ipanywhere.com/


8. The "First Cumming Methodist Church" Web site is www.cummingfirst.com


9. And the designers at "Speed of Art" await you at their wacky Web site,
http://www.speedofart.com/

Tum ti tum! I'm so all about policing right now. Last week on my special constable training course, our trainer brought in a rucksack full of weapons. We looked at them, and then we shared them among ourselves and went outside to practice searching each other for offensive weapons, and then arresting each other for it. It was excellent!

Today, I went to get my hepatitis B jab, on the Met's suggestion. My doctor was rather inappropriate ("So, now they let little girls like you join the police? (I am 5"10) "I'd let a pretty girl like you arrest me" (I am wearing grubby sweats). "Will you be going to Iraq or Afghanistan?" (I don't think the Met's powers stretch that far to the east of central London).

But much more worrying is that his hands were shaking so badly that it took him about 3 minutes to pick up a leaflet on his desk. He eventually managed to inject me with something, but I do hope it was the right thing, in the right part of my body. Lowlowprices says that as long as I don't develop side-effects such as monsterism, I should be ok.

I went to Croatia, Montenegro and Albania with lowlowprices, and it was very nice. In Croatia we saw a loggerhead turtle in the sea, and in Albania we saw a tortoise in a field! This is a postcard of Shkoder, Northern Albania:


Believe me when I tell you that they have crammed all the city's premier sights into the frame, and that they must have sandblasted the usual beggars, dust and fish out of the way before they took the picture. Albania has a very interesting English-language newspaper, the Tirana Times, to which I would genuinely love to subscribe, but €37 for 3 months? Woar. (If I wasn't lazy, in a hurry and ignorant, there would be a link to it right here!)

Montenegro's tourist slogan is "Feel the Montenegro". We felt it, and it was strong.

Next week I'll be in Venice, so do not look for me!

So, I passed my special constable fitness test the second time around. The first time, I failed for being too much like this:



But now of course I am all like this:



Soon I hope to be unleashed on the streets, doing vital policing work such as this:

Do you realise that, in Islands in the Stream, Kenny Roger sings to Dolly: "I'm a-going to get you with a fine-toothed comb"? That's not very loving. In fact, it's horrible. Imagine being combed to death.

But perhaps it's a nit comb and he's going to delouse her. That has to be done sometimes.

Also, Julia Goldsworthy, MP for, like, Falmouth and Camborne, is going to be in the next series of the Games.

Why must these MPs debase our celebrity-based TV formats?

I was totally checking out Pink Windmill's blog and found a link to this.
Check out these beauties:

I like this story for the following sentences:

"Essentially we want to know why Venus went bad"

and

"Scientists hope Venus Express will help them answer these questions: Why is Venus so hot?"

Yesterday I had a "Yes, Minister" orgy (it wasn't actually an orgy)and now I'm all about Sir Humphrey. I love it when he smiles!

These are works by my favourite artist, Zhao Bandi: