Once on a donkey in Tunbridge Wells

At work, one of my jobs is to make sure we get up-to-date lists of offender's previous convictions from the police, since someone's current offence could be pretty innocuous, but there could be all sorts of things in their background. (FYI: I work for the Probation Service in the UK.)

Anyway, since this happens for every single offender who passes through our doors - including ones who just come to us for pre-sentence reports, and never actually end up under Probation supervision - I have now seen a lot of pre-cons.

Today, however, I was handed the pre-cons for an offender who had thirty-eight convictions for one hundred and thirty-six offences. That's more offences than I've seen on anyone else's pre-cons list, ever. (Not the most convictions, however. Since you can be charged with multiple offences at once, one conviction entry can have several offences listed on it - as evidenced by this guy! The most convictions I've ever seen was eighty-six.)

I love my job and I'm learning a lot, but I do not think I will ever be able to understand how someone can rack up that many offences. Sheesh.

...this. Just, what, Australia. Seriously. I want to see studies supporting this, Mr Judge, before you sentence.

It's probably just as well the guy didn't get a jail sentence, seeing as - if the Australian system is at all similar to the British one - the poor people in the prisons would have to try and work with him on his "sex offending". The probation officers at my work complain that it's hard enough to get people who actually do download images of child pornograpy to see how they contribute to the harm caused by the people who make those pictures - how the hell would you do that for Simpsons characters?

So while going through the Classifieds looking for jobs today, I came across an advert for a gardener.

A gardener marketing him/herself as Lady Chatterley's Gardener.

What worries me is that it seemed to be entirely in earnest, and not some sort of daft prank. Unless fence-mending and hedge-trimming actually have the euphemisms my dodgy mind is coming up with. (Which, I admit, is actually quite likely. Oh, internet.)

This reminded me of the small children on the train yesterday morning, one of whom was going on about how she'd had several German lessons before she'd realised what this "Deutsch" and "Deutschland" thing the teacher was going on about was.

As bad as that is, it's nothing compared to the fact that her friend jumped in with, "Deutsch is the capital, isn't it?"

Aha. Ow.

(You know the best bit? These were private school students. Well-spent money, there.)

I only wish I was making this up. I fear for the future of humanity.

Whaaaaaaaaat.

Shlomo Benizri, please stop giving Richard Dawkins ammunition. He doesn't need your help. Yeesh.

I can't work up much of a reaction to this, because it's just such a mind-bogglingly stupid thing to say. Yes, the sexual habits of humans have a direct causal relationship with the movement of the Earth's crust. This is clearly the case. Yes.