Gordon Wasserman (now Lord Wasserman), an expert on policing, is a senior adviser to the Cameron government on crime control and the author of the Police and Crime Commissioners plan, which will create a new class of elected local officials who will be able to make budgets and to hire and fire Chief Constables. We hadn’t met, though we have lots of people in common, but (thanks to Joan Brody) I had a chance to meet him in London. Since he had votes coming up in the House of Lords, that’s where we met.
On my way out, after nearly two hours of wide-ranging and animated discussion, I gave him a copy of When Brute Force Fails. The next day he emailed me to say that he’d left it on his desk in the Lords chamber, from which it had been stolen.
I’m delighted that someone among the Peers has such excellent literary taste. Lord Wasserman, despite his extensive knowledge of British criminal procedure, is unsure whether this high-value theft will be investigated by Scotland Yard or by Black Rod.
If the marketing folks at Princeton University Press are on the ball, the next edition will have, emblazoned on the front cover, STOLEN FROM THE HOUSE OF LORDS.
Better than HURLED ACROSS THE ROOM BY RICK PERRY?
Good story. Barely related: Rev. Peter Gomes wanted to put bibles in the pews at Harvard Memorial Church. Oh no, came the response, they might be stolen. Rev. Gomes: So you’re saying that the word of God might end up in the hands of sinners? As I recall, bibles were placed, and many were, um, taken home.
No word on how many were read and/or acted on.
And maybe they could subtitle it:
STOLEN FROM THE HOUSE OF LORDS
Without any economic prodding from Abbie Hoffman’s ghost.
The Alcoholic Anonymous meeting joke is “Hey, one of those new people stole our Big Book…when he gets to step 9, he’ll bring it back”.
Don’t they say “pinched” there?
I think it is “nicked.”
One absent-minded writer had engraved on his umbrells: “Stolen from G.K. Chesterton”.