A Dry Post.....Honest!!

There was a suggestion that my last blog post was created whilst under the influence of high percentage ABV vino. While a betting person might regard their money as safe if placed upon the likelihood of a subversive evening of blogging with wine, last night this was not the case.

No vino, no Guinness, and no whisky lubricated that particular blog post......just some Ribena and tea. This was due to two reasons:

1. I was due on duty in South Chelsea the following morning to engage with the natives of Battersea, and they've been all frisky just of late.

2. I had intended to run before work taking in the majestic Old Father Thames and the Royal Chelsea Hospital- the home of the Chelsea Pensioners.

So a dry early evening and absolutely zilch on the telly drove me to my PC. I wondered why the suggestion of an alcohol influenced post might have been made and a slight suspicion was confirmed by Mrs Mac who said:

'There's rather a lot of swearing in it.'

I didn't think there was until I read it through again. Of course the smidgen of Irvine Welsh upped the cuss-count but there were a few cattle-trucks and merchant bankers of my own in there.

I will attempt to moderate the colour of my language in future but I have to say that whilst insuring the safety of the residents of SW11 today we had a shout that made me laugh my fuckin' tits off.

So we were called to a man in the river at Wandsworth Bridge. Off we shot up the road, blues and twos wailing. We arrive at the scene a few minutes later where there are a good number of London Ambulance Service personnel, another fire engine and a large crowd of Battersea's residents who are apparently 'between jobs.' All are looking into the river that was to have hosted my run that morning (can you guess it didn't?).

A bystander relates to me what has occurred:

'A geezer was in PC World and he nicked two hard-drives and a memory card. The security bloke spotted him and chased him so he legged it over to here. He jumped over the wall and into the river to escape by swimming away.........but the tide went out a few hours ago.'

A quick look onto the muddy and shopping trolley festooned foreshore, which was four metres down by the way, confirmed the hapless thief sporting two newly broken legs and hollering louder than a market trader at packing up time.

The attached video was made available to me by an Ambulance Service colleague who filmed the event for training purposes. We, of course, are strictly forbidden to carry cameras or mobile phones whilst on duty and are punishable by death if found to have recorded operational events.

It shows the HEMS chopper fighting to take off against the river with the alleged computer thief on board.

Enjoy. I did!!