Gadget - It's a Mythtery

It seems that Inspector Gadget has packed up shop and bloggered off. Good luck to him/her. I hope he doubles the time on pension that he spent drawing a salary (something I wish to all my police friends). I was only a casual reader of his blog, probably less than a once a month. I would rarely go so far as to leave a comment as I recognise a pointless exercise when I see one, but I would not wish to diminish the theraputic value of venting that a serving officer/victim of the system would get from being able to do so. Despite that, Gadget actually sent me a personal Christmas greeting once, which was nice.

There are comments on other blogs that I casually surf into (and quickly out of, wiping off any fingerprints as I leave the room) that suggest any number of things regarding this event, for it is an event, and one of those theories is that he was always retired which is why he could never be tracked down and why he could be so prolific, bearing in mind the research and typing time that went into some of those posts. What is also a possibility is that he had a ghostwriter at his elbow/in his house/in his life. Whatever the real answer may be, the posts were always authentic.

Most of the police officers that I have communed with in public post comments or private messages since I started my own ramblings on this `hobby blog` were quick to point out that when it comes to talking about being a police officer, authenticity is something that is very difficult to fake - for long. Gadget was nothing if not authentic. I recognised him pretty quickly, as did thousands of other serving and retired officers hence the huge following. The posts were formulated from real events, real systems and real policies. The frustration, the crass stupidity and the human mire that diverts a massively disproportionate amount of police time away from dealing with people who genuinely need it was all too real. The self-centred and lacklustre management was all too readily identifiable (albeit they're not restricted to the police).
 
Those outside the police, including politicians, might be forgiven for writing him off as just another bitter and twisted frustrated `commie agitator type` and be thinking, `it can't be that bad`. To that I'd say that I have toned down many of my own `war-stories` for the very reason that I know people outside the job just would not believe them. I have been out of that life for eleven years and so I have no up to the second anecdotal evidence, but I still have a lot of friends who do.

The `Gadget denial brigade` may have argued against his views and hated his attitude on any number of policing issues and the twisted poisoned psychotics hated him just because they hate everyone, but I don't ever recall him being proved a liar.