Tonight:
4°c
They say community spirit is dead. But on my street in Teddington people really do look out for each other. One of my neighbours, for example, recently reported me to the police for parking five centimetres over their driveway. People are big on vigilance around here.
So for some time now I have been dreading the advent of online crime maps, launched this week by the Home Office. You can now look up your street on the internet and see whether you are living in a crime hotspot. Depending on where you live, some forces' maps have red dots indicating vehicle crime. A sprinkling of green dots means that lots of your neighbours have Asbos. (Not usually a concern in Teddington. But it will be my turn soon, I'm sure.) Other maps show crime trends broken down to very local level.
The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors has already warned that in London these maps could "literally wipe thousands of pounds off house prices overnight" in certain areas. This is exactly the sort of thing they like to guard against in Teddington. They will keep the house prices up if it kills them. So if you want to offend in this borough, good luck to you.
Our locality is a hotbed of crime activism. When the police station tried to increase its square footage two years ago, hundreds of people turned out to protest, arguing that expansion would only bring more criminals into the area and who on earth wanted that?
As part of my neighbourly duty, then, I have already thoroughly investigated the crime map for our street. The crime rate was yellow (average). There were four crimes in November, down from eight in October. I experienced a certain frisson. Maybe living here was more exciting than I thought. Or maybe not.
The truth is, these maps cannot really show where crimes take place. They can only show the location where the crime was reported. Say, for example, your phone is stolen at Waterloo but you don't notice until you get home. If you report this to your local police, it will show up as a crime in your locality. So lots of central London's crime statistics will just get exported to the suburbs.
This is why these maps are so irritating. You have to read the small print. It's all just random numbers and massaging of figures. The crime rate is for a certain area, not just your street, and this area is not clearly defined. And it's not an actual number of crimes. It's a statistical representation: in our case, four crimes per 1,000 of the population. The vice-chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales has said that crime maps will only exacerbate the fear of crime - or, in some areas, offer false reassurance. Either way, crime maps are a criminal waste of resources and a meaningless use of technology. Not that they won't provide hours of paranoid fodder for the crime-obsessed.
I look on the bright side, though. Maybe in future the virtual curtain twitchers will be so busy studying the maps, they won't have time to report me to the police. One less statistic, at least.
Milk's the cream of movies
I don't know whether to feel excited about this or jaded. It's only the second week of January and I've already decided on my film of the year: Gus Van Sant's Milk, which opens next week. It stars Sean Penn as the campaigning politician Harvey Milk, California's first openly gay elected official.
It leaves you speechless with admiration from the opening titles, which use real documentary footage of men hiding their faces as they are arrested in gay bars in the 1970s. Hard to believe this is recent history, Milk is enough to motivate the most hard-hearted political cynic. (And I should know.) Forget Mickey Rourke's comeback, this is the performance of the decade and has to be a dead cert Oscar for Penn. One of the most inspiring films to come out of the US in years. Who says you can't make a difference?
I'm going into battle for M&S
The recessional battle lines have been drawn in our house. My husband is a doom merchant: It will get worse, much worse, he keeps muttering. I, on the other hand, am the Pollyanna of the downturn: I see opportunity in all things and am delighted that our wedding china from Wedgwood is now destined to become a collector's item.
The only thing to dim my mood is the waning star of my personal talisman, Marks & Spencer. Even the most optimistic among us know that if it goes under, it's game over. But we, the M&S faithful, are nothing if not courageous under fire. A pair of £50 Autograph high-waisted evening trousers previously rejected in a fit of New Year's frugality is now summoning me like a patriotic bugle. To arms!
Reader views (5)
Instead of whingeing, why not learn to park?
- Srs, London, 08/01/2009 22:08
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These figures will have been massaged for Police ends, and by politicians for theirs. Worthless.
- Dave Davies, Basingstoke, 08/01/2009 19:56
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Check out Angel/Upper Street area. 170 crimes in one month! I have no idea why this is supposed to be such a desirable area - anyone who wants to pay so much to live in such a dodgy area needs their head examined!
- James, London, 08/01/2009 18:15
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Teddington is lovely and we want to keep it that way.
- Martin H Watson, Teddington, 08/01/2009 14:38
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I was unfortunate enough to live in Teddington for four years, so I know what she means. It's an enclave of small-minded, 'little England' somewhere south of the river. Thank God I was born in the north
- Mark Wright, Milan, Italy, 08/01/2009 11:49
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