THE MOST USELESS POLICEMAN AWARDS 2012!

Welcome one and all to this year's addition on "The Most Useless Policeman" Awards. You will see from the pictures that we have 4 nominees for this year's award, some of which you may know. Let me take this time to introduce you to one of the highly tipped contenders which you may not know -  the Masaka Police department!

CHIEF WIGGUM

As many of you will know, about a month ago we were robbed in the middle of the night and had over a thousand pounds worth of stuff stolen as we slept! We weren’t too troubled by our stuff having been teefed, it is just possessions after all and also, as we have travel insurance, we knew we would be able to claim some compensation as long as we managed to get an official police report. A simple matter you may think....

Well, this is Uganda my friends, and perhaps one of the establishments that bypasses all others (EVEN the local immigration office!) in quite unimaginable ineptness, laziness and laughable incompetence, is the Masaka Police department!

LT. FRANK DREBIN

I had never held out any real hope of any proper investigation into this crime, and was vindicated in this opinion when despite bringing various implements that the robbers had used (carefully sealed CSI-stylie by Sarah in plastic cellophane bags) I was told that they weren’t needed. “Will someone be coming to visit the scene of the crime?” I asked. “Perhaps if someone is available,” was the response. Of course no one was, because it seems that the police in Masaka have the tried and tested strategy of solving crimes by sitting on your batty and looking vacant and/or chatting to your friend about the football. Very effective I’m sure. Of course it’s always possible they are in fact solving crimes with the power of their minds. The commander may be a fan of the film “Minority Report” and believe that if you sit there dreaming, the answers will simply come! I, however, remain somewhat dubious and would have preferred to see a bit of hands-on-policing.

OFFICER BARBRADY

Anyway, I digress, as in fact that main thing I was interested in was getting an official police report for insurance purposes. “No problem,” I was told, “we have your statement, give us some time to do our investigations (?!?), and we will let you know when you can come and get the report.”

Two and a half weeks later, having been away with my parents, and still having heard nothing from the police I decided to go and check on the progress of my report. I arrived to find that not only had nothing been done what-so-ever, but that they had also succeeded in losing all my paperwork resulting in a lengthy wait to give my statement all over again.

I was still fairly calm at this point but after being handed over to a CID officer who proceeded to question me about why I hadn’t come sooner and how I had wasted time and that I wasn’t serious, my blood started to simmer ever so slightly.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, Sir, is it my fault that I have had to sit for hours on 2 separate occasions to give a statement that has been lost by your office, and my fault that I misunderstood the instruction to wait until I got a phone call before coming back, well yes I can see how I’m not serious and how that is all my fault.” Numpty!

THE MASAKA POLICE 

DEPARTMENT

Anyway, that issue negotiated I was assured that now my case had been handed to him I would be getting “The Real Service!”

Let me share with you therefore what the “Real Service” of The Masaka Police entails:

     1.   Being told to come back another day because it’s nearly 4pm and getting a bit late;

     2.   Coming back on that day to spend the first 10 minutes, not working on getting the police report sorted, but rather listening to the tales of woe about how the officer’s car is broken and how his mother is sick in hospital (complete with gruesome photos of her gammy foot on his phone) and would I like to be a good Muzungu and give him some money to help;


     3. Trundling off to the bank to pay the 62,500 shillings government fee for the police report, only to then be told on my return that their computer is broken, so would I be a good chap and go and type it and print it myself. How very reasonable of them to ask me to do their job for them: shall I bring you a cup of tea as well, Sir?!!!

Needless to say I still haven’t received this blinking report, and after another fruitless journey to the police station today the saga could yet continue. Is it worth the few hundred quid I’m likely to get back from our insurance company? Only time will tell....


And with regards to the nominations, well, I think you all know who gets my vote!

As The Crow's Fly!

We have been blessed to have just had a fabulous time with the Crow Seniors. Herein is our account of their time with us: 

After ignoring some days of dutiful nagging from his wife, Timmo finally called up the (fairly ropey) guesthouse that we normally stay at if we need to spend the night in Entebbe pre-/post-collecting visitors, to discover that it was fully booked.  Although initially annoyed, Sarah quickly realised that this procrastination meant that they needed to stay somewhere nicer – yet another silver lining, and proof for Timmo once again that what some (i.e. his wife) would call a ‘very annoying trait”, can in fact be very useful! 

Al and Lil were touched, of course, that crowds of people had come to line the streets to celebrate their arrival, complete with frantic drumming, Ugandan booty shaking and high pitched warbling. The fact that the King of Buganda (The Kabaka) also passed by we feel was a mere coincidence and that  in fact someone must have informed him to come at once, because the wise and powerful Crows had decided to grace his Kingdom with their presence!

Of course no trip in Uganda is without challenges, and our trip to Fort Portal with Al and Lil was no exception!  Within 15km of leaving Masaka, an over-zealous driver over-took our car at break-neck speed, carelessly flicking a perfectly targeted pebble at our car’s driver’s window, and smashing the whole pane of glass so that it fell like a waterfall.  In a country where patience is not just a virtue but an essential survival tool, we had prepared ourselves for a long delay to get it fixed, but our mechanic fitted a new window within the hour – beat that Quikfit!!  The whole episode is a good example of the protection we have been given here – ok: it’s annoying that the window smashed, but had the window been down, Tim would currently have a little pebble embedded in his brain.  Would that make him more or less peculiar?  Discuss. 

So, you’re off on the open road to see new sights and wonders, animals and birds of intrigue and mystery.  What’s the one thing you should not forget?  Yes, that’s right, a camera.  Due to our recent robbery, some dirty teef is enjoying photographing his new stash of electrical goods (obviously whilst running a high quality medical service for his fellow thieves with Sarah’s stolen medical equipment), but not to worry,  Al had packed his camera....but no charger!  Titties!  Luckily we found an alternative way to charge the camera, enabling us to capture monkeys playing within a metre of us in Fort Portal, and this time Tim definitely DID see his lion in QENP, 3 in fact, enjoying a late afternoon nap after feasting on some unlucky victim.

All in all, a very good trip.  One of the many “high-lights” was a visit to the amazing Kyaninga Lodge, where we posed and pranced, and pretended to be some of their upper class guests.  At prices nearing 300 pounds a night for a room, naturally we soon had to slink off to our accommodation elsewhere i.e.  a dodgy road-side hotel: complete with noisy generator, missing toilet seats/shower curtain, and rowdy football fans into the early hours.  But for 6 pounds a night for a double room, I guess you get what you pay for!