Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Not Funny

I've got a lousy poker face. It was one of my (many) fears that I'd be unable to hide my disbelief if (as is traditional) the Defence lawyer was to claim that they had been told that the accused had recently been offered a job starting Monday.

I think I hid my cynicism pretty well, and in fact it was the Prosecution that came closest to making me inappropriately crack-up laughing.

It was a case where the accused had committed an offence and then, drunk and wildly emotional, had resisted arrest while unleashing a tsunami of abuse at the PC whose job it was to subdue him.

The prosecutor was a properly posh young man with a suit that probably cost more than my car. His accent was cultured and the way he delivered the swear words had me biting my lip. I have bleeped some of it because this is after all a family blog:-
"You {obscene gerund] [female genital] !
Come on you [male genital] !
You and me; man to man; I'll beat the living [obscene gerund] [excrement] out of you, you [female genital]"
And so on. At some length.

Obviously this is serious : you don't resist arrest and you don't verbally or otherwise assault a policeman in the pursuit of their duty - so it shouldn't be remotely funny, and we sentenced accordingly.

It was just the way the lawyer said it; like he was reading a weather report - with a flat intonation, in a Radio 4 voice.

Mrs Stan will testify that I can become doubled-over, unable to speak, incapacitated if something really tickles my funny bone.

If this ever happens in court, I intend to fake a heart attack.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Many thanks for your blog. Had my initial interview this morning and your experience on questions was very useful. I wonder if my panel were using a similar bank of questions to you? The interview lasted an hour, very probing, with a thinly veiled attempt to unsettle me and, presumably, see how I reacted. I left feeling I had spoken well but having absolutely no idea if I would fit the criteria that the panel was searching for.

Stan said...

Mart : I was fairly convinced that I'd blown it on first interview. I left feeling I'd spoken like someone for whom English was not their first language and who had also sustained a recent head trauma, and they still offered me a second interview.

They definitely do goad you a little to see whether you'll combust under pressure - I'm sure more than a few applicants rise to the bait.

Check out the 6 key qualities - http://radiofreestan.blogspot.com/2008/10/spending-too-long-on-question-1.html - this is what they are intending to measure you against.

Good luck, and be prepared for a massive amount of nothing to happen for really quite a while.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Stan. I had a letter on the saturday after the interview to say that I had been selected for a 2nd interview. Have to take passport photo, passport, two other forms of ID and turn up half an hour early to study some papers that will be subject of a discussion. I was very please, many people I had spoke to knew someone who had applied and not got through. 2nd interview is in 3 weeks!

Anonymous said...

Stan, I'd like to add my thanks to that of Mart's. Excellent blog.
I'm slightly ahead in the selection process having just completed my second interview. A more "technical" experience if that's the right word but still plenty of none to subtle attempts to try and get me to turn into Angry of Tonbridge Wells...:)
Now of course, as you suggest, it's the long wait.

Stan said...

Good work Mart & Jeff - best of luck. Just remember : it's only bad news that travels quickly in the Department of Justice , so no news is probably good news.