04.25.08
Our fortress of solitude
Today, I was at Waterloo station and needed the loo so I threw my 30pence (yes it has gone up) into the turnstile and sat down with my copy of New Scientist for a nice read.
Men seem to have a particular relationship with the jon, that women might have some difficulty understanding. I, like many others simply have to have something to read. I’ve gotten through some great pieces of literature over the years, but In times of desperation, anything will do. However, given the choice of the Daily mail or the ingredients on the back of a bottle of head and shoulders features heavily then wonderful nomenclature of sodium benzoate, and Methylisothiazolinone suddenly become great works of literature.
After a few pages of an interesting article on evolution, the cubicle resonated with the sound of the door rattling, followed by the words “police, open up”.
A little perplexed, i said that I was a little busy and wasn’t ready to come out just yet. When I finally opened the door, there were four police officers (i think two of them were community support). They informed me that I was suspected of taking drugs in the cubicle and that I had been reported. They said that they wanted to take me aside to ask a few questions.
By this time, I was a bit nervous – fearing an afternoon of body cavity searches. But I asked if i could wash my hands first, to which they agreed.
We them moved up the step to the concourse, talking a little about what I do and were I was from and by the time we got to daylight, the main officer said that after talking to me, he doesn’t believe there was a problem. He said “I had a look over the cubicle next to you and could see that you were just reading”. I was completely taken aback by this apparent violation and immediately exclaimed “you were watching me take a dump?”.
When I asked them about their grounds for suspicion, the stated some bullshit about my coat dangling by the door, which was a sign that drug dealers used.
I’m not up on recent law changes, but certainly to conduct a body search there should be “Reasonable grounds for suspicion”, but it’s hard to interpret the law when it comes to spying on men with their pants down reading something other than the london lite.
This is a big deal for me, I’m not happy that my last bastion of privacy has been violated so casually. I think that the guy from This life, on Couplings puts it most eloquently: