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CORE TEAM BRIEF
June 2005
Briefing Team: Chief Executive/Corporate Directors/Clinical Directors/Directorate Managers
Security
Warning - We have received a warning from the London Ambulance Service of activities in their area. Whilst the below behaviour is not common place in our area I have spoken with Greater Manchester Police and their risk assessment of the action is to circulate it as a potential'
The London Ambulance service have units closely associated with the Police based in South London who are basically Fighting Gang Crimes. The 'street gangs' in London (particularly South London at present, but it is sure to spread) have initiation tasks which new gang members have to carry out to be admitted to the 'gang'.
The latest craze is to drive around, deliberately with no lights on their cars. The first person who 'flashes' them, points at them or sounds their horn at them, has to be followed by that new gang member in their car, who then has to fire a shot into that vehicle with no regard as to who is inside.
Our official instruction is that if we see a vehicle with no lights on, we are NOT to 'flash' it etc. and the advice to friends and family is that you should ignore any vehicles you see without lights. I would ask that you pass this info on to all your family, friends and colleagues and who knows, it may save a life.
Trust Security Manager
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Wow! It seems like the coppers are finding new and more ingenious ways of implementing their shoot to kill policy.
Ho, ho, ho.
Now, this notice was cause for a chuckle because way back when (in February or something), I posted this:
Only complete nobheads forget to put their headlamps on while driving at night. Drivers and pedestrians use elaborate methods to draw errant motorists' attention: pointing; flashing their own headlights; running after the car, mouthing "Your lights!"; and my own particular favourite is to turn my own headlamps off then on again.
My "Your lights!" method came about because of a scare story that was circulating Manchester about ten years ago. Apparently, it was a gangland ploy to attract motorists as targets for random (I've used "random"!) assassinations: drive around with your headlamps off, then track down and shoot the first driver that flashes their headlamps at you. For some reason, I thought that turning my headlamps off then on somehow disqualified me from being the recipient of a bullet to the head - I've no idea how I came to this conclusion, but there you go. Even more worrying was the fact that nothing corroborated the gangland assassination rumour and, an even more serious symptom of my paranoia was that I was living in Coventry at the time!
Anyway, only complete tossers forget to put their headlamps on while driving at night. However, a really ineffective way of alerting people to their forgetfulness is to flash your headlamps at them as they're waiting to pull out of a junction that you're turning in to - they just think that you're flashing them to go. But anyway, I'd like to express my thanks to the nice Renault Laguna driver who flashed me as I was pulling out of Tesco's petrol station this evening; I did eventually put my lights on as I got on to the main road. Tit.
Eye-hand coordination
Having just purchased a massive tub of olives from Tesco, I've discovered that somebody must've switched the garlic-stuffed olives with the plain, unpitted variety somewhere in between me spooning the things out of the bowl and them landing in the tub. How do things like that happen? Your mind plays tricks on you, don't trust it.
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