POLICE. NO CAMERA. OVER-REACTION

“Middle Classes Losing Faith In Police” screams the Daily Mail today amidst the coverage about the dissatisfaction law abiding people now feel with the police. There were a record number of complaints made in 2006-7: 29,637. Well, please add me to next year’s total after I was stopped and ordered to account for my actions recently. My crime: using my mobile phone in a manner likely to take a photo. I kid you not.

I was idly standing on Oxford Street contemplating an hour’s walk home rather than the fetid Tube when two officers on bicycles stopped a push-bike courier right in front of me. One officer (No: TL626) was unnecessarily obnoxious, which got the courier's back up, so I decided to ear-wig, as you do.

I watched this vignette unfold and considered taking a photo on my phone, you know, for the hell of it, as you do. I pointed the lens, then decided not to bother. In a blink, the other officer came over and accused me of taking a photo. This, I would find out, was PC Snell (No: TL7449), a petite woman of about 25 with short black hair beneath her cycling helmet. What she lacked in height, she made up for in officious bloody-mindedness.

I showed her my phone. She was excited because she owned the same model and instructed me through the image files. Nothing there. Ha! Unlucky, Super Cop. That should have been the end of it. Dixon of Dock Green would have laughed lightly at the misunderstanding and waved me on my way. Not so with Snell. She insisted on taking my details and filing a "Stop and Searches" form. It beggared belief.

I suddenly found myself in possession of a lethal weapon: fully-loaded sarcasm. I made her work for every sorry answer. At one point she said: "You know, we can do this interview somewhere else". It was a direct lift from The Sweeney, or Morse. Possibly Trumpton. She was threatening to take me down to the station for holding a mobile phone. Er, you might have to arrest about 50 million others. Besides, what was she going to do, throw me over her cross bar and pedal me to Paddington Green?

Snell’s hands were trembling as she filled out the form. Clearly a big "collar". Her shaking, spidery scrawl revealed: "Male was standing outside Sainsbury (sic). He appeared to be using his mobile phone and pointing it in (sic) myself TL7449 and TL626...". I picked her up on her grammar (“We was doing…”) and punctuation when she omitted the apostrophe in Sainsbury's. "I didn't get A-level English," she revealed. “No shame in that, but surely you can copy words?” It was in foot-high letters 10 yards away.

It went on. She asked for ID. I gave her a bank card. Done with the courier, Snell’s wingman TL626 came over to assist. He radioed HQ to get a match on my name after I refused to give my address. Exasperated, I gave them my date of birth. Looking at my Lloyds Card, PC Snell continued to bust me.

"So, Robin...".

"Well, it's Rob to my friends," I said cheerily.

The other copper mis-heard and butted in. From behind wrap-around mirror sun glasses, he snapped: "Ah. You are saying that this card is your 'friend's'?" He suddenly got a buzz thinking he had chanced upon a big time credit card thief impersonating as another. Then he began questioning me. Give me strength.

And so it continued. To think, a week or so earlier a young man had been stabbed to death at 5pm outside McDonald's a few hundred yards away. I bet these two cycling plods would have been indispensable on such a day with their pencils and laser criminal antennae. They would have probably alighted at the bloody scene and started handcuffing people for over-salting their French fries.

At one point, as we argued over my "actions", little Snell pointed to the sky: “You know we can trace what happened through the CCTV.” Where the hell do they get these people?

The police watch over us day and night through four million cameras, slowly destroying the trust and respect of millions of law abiding people, and then they have the audacity to get all shirty if you - allegedly - point a camera phone at them and do NOT take a photo.

They wonder why we complain. Before I had written this piece, I had decided not to file a complaint. I feel too bored and beaten by Big Brother Britain to be bothered, but now I have had second thoughts. Tactless, negative, spiteful officers like PC Snell need to be brought to book, or things will never change.

I have since found out that it is not against the law to take a photo of a copper going about his or her duty. So, from now on, I will be snapping them, not nicking us.

Britain's Got Semi-Talent

And, so, to Fountain Studios in Wembley for a seat behind the judges at a live semi-final of Britain's Got Talent. What an extraordinary experience.

I have dipped into the series since a night of undiluted hilarity at the auditions in Hackney, so the thought of some more live action was an easy lure.

A glass of pink champagne backstage got me in the mood for Simon, Piers and Amanda, and, boy, do you need some happy fuel to attend these shows; the crew get you clapping and on your feet constantly like demented performing seals to generate the feel-good vibe. It is an exhausting two hours which leaves you with raw hands and arthritic knees. But it is worth the effort.

Love it or hate it, BGT is one weird whirl of high purity entertainment - good and bad. It makes you cringe, laugh, cheer, boo and cry all in one fatal dose. You sink at the sight of some of the acts - the clueless Indian magician, that troop of a hundred hopeless dancers, the bin bashers, and Christine Hamilton going for it in the finale of You Raise Me Up. But then you are up-lifted by the endearing, untarnished talent of the chorister - you know, the boy with bad white heads. His Tears In Heaven made me water a bit.

You can't help but get caught up in it all when you are there. When the agonising moment came for Cowell to cast the deciding vote between Flava and The Cheeky Monkeys, I found myself shouting out loud.

My head knew it should be Flava - the half-baked dance act with "street" kids who want to make something of themselves - but my heart wanted the two cute little blonde kids who, let's be honest, are too bloody young to be appearing in an event of this scale. Their act makes me feel a bit uncomfortable. In fact, so uncomfortable, that I shouted out their name to help Cowell decide. I was so near to him that I seriously think my shout - and a few others - helped swing it. I was like a parent at a pantomime who had sunk one too many sweet sherries in the interval. Really, I should be ashamed of myself.

Season greetings

I kicked off the "Season" yesterday with a fine day at Chelsea Flower Show, as you do. I know for sure that the years are catching me up when my enjoyment of this event grows with each passing year. It can't be long before I am a crashing gardening bore, although I haven't even got a garden yet; they cost about £200,000 where I live with barely room for a wafer-thin border.

The Chelsea Flower Show is a slow, subtle hoot. It is all so quaint and antiquated and ever so, ever so white. It is like stepping back in time when everything was so much safer and quiet. It must be the only public event left that you can go to without being scanned or frisked.

Highlight for me this year was the hornbeam trees in the Best In Show Laurent Perrier garden designed by Tom Stuart-Smith. I want some hornbeams now. I saw a bonsai hornbeam in the Pavillion so maybe that is the answer. I also want a tank of that pink bubbly his sponsors were splashing around after Tom won. Yes, a glass of pink under my very own miniature hornbeam in my micro garden, that'll do.

I had a fleeting chat with the maestro himself - Alan Titchmarsh. It is hilarious watching the older ladies fiddling with their digital cameras with tembling, liver-spotted hands whenever he is near. He really is a heartthrob.

One minor revelation was finding out why dear, dear Alan is so faultlessly fluent on those seemingly ad-libbed links from those little gardens: he has a mini autocue slotted onto the camera.

The alcohol Test

And so, to the second day of the First Test against New Zealand at Lord's for a happy reminder of one indisputable, joyous fact: a cricket ground is the only place where a man can open a bottle of red wine, sup a pint of beer, or pop a champagne cork at 11am in public and not be accused of being an alcoholic.

It is also the only place that a younger man can visit and be assured of seeing for certain what his future looks like if he continues on his ruinous path of grape 'n' grain. It looks like bloated bellies, thinning hair, burst cheek blood vessels and port noses. Not a pretty sight, but that's cricket for you: it's one of life's truly humbling levellers.

Will Self - the interview

Just a note to let you know that my filmed interview with Will Self is now on the Access Interviews website.

Rarely does a subject make me laugh as much as Will. His tone and delivery on the slightest of subjects cracks me up, as you will see on the film. He is also wonderfully articulate and many of his answers on a scope of topics are quite mesmerising. However frothy, I particularly enjoyed the Q&A section and his answer to "What piece of wisdom would you pass on to a child?" is particularly insightful and poignant. Will also talks candidly about his drugs past, his writing life, and the woes of being labelled a "grumpy old man".

Oh, and all luvvieness aside, I can sincerely recommend his new novel, 'The Butt'. Eloquent, highly original, dark, witty, fascinating, and quite a page turner. It is, ah, bloody brilliant, yeah. And it could make a great film. Will's wish is for Ed Norton to play both of the main characters. David Lynch to direct?

It's all a Fix penalty

Much coverage today in the media generally about the blatant extortion racket Councils run in the guise of parking enforcement. This very subject has been a keen area of focus for me recently. In fact, I even flexed my first Freedom of Information muscle last month by requesting the stats of my local council's windfall in this disgusting past time. (BTW, I wholly recommend the FOI service. Most efficient and, as it says on the tin, it's free) The figures were emailed to me earlier this week.

In the financial year 2006-2007, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea masterly carried out the following: Parking Tickets: 279,324; Clamps: 14,213; Tows: 8,752. Revenue generated: Parking Tickets: £13,208,694. Clamps/Tows: 2,383,754.

Obvious question: Where the hell did all that money go?

There is a car pound at the end of my street. I have been known to go down there and pay my local gangsters £260 for carrying my car 250 yards. Racketeering, it's a nasty business and our elected officials should be brought to account. Bring on the revolution. End this corruption.