Why I am not an equine homophobe

Lepapillon0311

<font color="crimson"><font face="arial"><font size="4">By Sam Brown
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<br>It’s almost eight months since my encounter with the hooves of justice. In that time it has received an obsene amount of press coverage. Everyone from Jonathan Ross to the German Times have had their turn with the story. I’m not even going to pretend that this bothers me because, well, if I’m honest, I love it. But for the rest of the press-reading public, it must be wearing more than a little bit thin by now. With any luck this should be the end of it.
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<br>I confess that I am slightly miffed that I never got my day in court. I know I faced a criminal record and an ugly fine, but it never really occurred to me that I wouldn’t get off. I was looking forward to hearing the evidence against me delivered to the glum panel of magistrates, by an officer desperately trying to cover his tracks.
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<br>His decision to arrest me, and continued assertion that I made “homophobic comments” shows that while he knows that homophobia is wrong, he doesn’t have a clue what homophobia is. I clearly hit a nerve, perhaps suggesting he has a few issues in that department himself. I don’t wish him any ill will, but if you do see him trotting along, maybe you could pass some comment on his fine steed? Do it from a safe distance of course, and be polite.
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<br>And if enough of you do it, maybe, just maybe, enlightened thought will begin to seep through his big fat helmet. If not, it still couldn’t do any harm to remind him of his most daring and courageous arrest. While I concede that our police force is institutionally flawed, our problems pale in comparison with those faced by other countries. I spent New Year’s Eve in Paris and, just after midnight, was swept up in quite a substantial race riot.
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<br>Having quaffed a crème de menthe or two, I was oblivious to the bottles and debris raining down around me, and had quite a lot of fun. The largely Tunisian and Senegalese crowd were incredibly welcoming, and showed us how close you could get to the wall of police before they beat you to a pulp. The sight of riot police merrily swinging their truncheons, without any apparent accountability got me thinking.
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<br>In what other country could a drunken idiot behave as I behaved and expect to keep his teeth? Certainly not America ? apparently Rodney King quipped something to the LAPD, and the rest is history. The Carabinieri in Italy wear an unbelievably gay uniform ? skin tight and lavishly embroidered with fetish straps and gold tassles ? but it would be most unwise to point this out to them. Britain has retained its (admittedly idealised) image of the “bobby on the beat”.
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<br>Most other nations associate their police with straight up, nononsense beatings. While I accept that the police’s actions in my case have been clumsy and inane, I think it actually reflects quite well on our society. People don’t disappear from our prisons, they don’t “fall” from high windows during questioning and cheeky students who spend the night inside will get a good sleep. In short, we don’t have to fear the police. They are accountable.
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<br>And while they may not have too many GCSEs to rub together, at least they don’t have guns. </font></font></font>