Essex police moved in mysterious ways when they dealt with the case of Lee Balkwell, who died in an unfortunate accident in a concrete mixer – see Observer article:

The emergency crews called to the concrete firm on a farm in Essex in the early hours of a summer morning met a scene that has stayed with them to this day. Mangled between the drum and chassis of a concrete-mixer lorry was the torso of a man, his legs twisted and resting on a pile of dried cement. One paramedic wrote “?foul play” in his pocketbook. Another said she thought she was looking at a suspicious death, and a third said he was reluctant to touch the body in case he damaged evidence.

One of the early contradictions of the inquiry was when detectives said they had treated the death of Mr Balkwell as suspicious for 35 days. Yet the day after he was found, his clothing was destroyed, without being examined by a forensic scientist, on the orders of a senior officer, and within 48 hours of the death, the police had told the family of the 33-year-old haulage driver that he had been killed in a freak accident while cleaning the drum of the lorry at 1am.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has arranged for an enquiry.

On the beck blog, Professor Dr. Henning Ernst Müller asks whether Germany does not also need such a body. The IPCC was founded in 2004 after human rights organizations had called for it for years; amnesty international first suggested such a body for Germany five years ago.

Nach den monatelangen inzwischen eingestellten Ermittlungen gegen zwei Polizeibeamte im Fall des getöteten Tennessee Eisenberg in Regensburg und seit dem vom BGH aufgehobenen Freispruch im Fall des im Gewahrsam verbrannten Ouri Jallow in Dessau steht das Thema polizeiunabhängiger Ermittlungen bei schwerwiegenden Vorwürfen gegen Polizeibeamte im Raum. So verschieden die Anlässe sind: Eine Behörde wie die IPCC (Independent Police Complaints Commission) im Vereinigten Königreich England und Wales, die Beschwerden gegen die Polizei nachgeht und bei schweren Vorwürfen diese auch selbst untersucht, hätte wohl in beiden angesprochenen Fällen selbständig ermittelt.

Can anyone tell me why Lustrum by Robert Harris, the second volume of the trilogy on ancient Rome, is called Conspirata in the USA?

(Titan is the name of the German translation by Wolfgang Müller).

Maybe they confuse lustrum with lust over there?

From the centre of Fürth.

LATER NOTE: This is what it looked like on 26th January 2010:

Simon Singh has been hampered by English libel law and requests signatures for his petition.

National Petition for Libel Law Reform

This doesn’t just affect people in the UK, as England is becoming a libel tourist destination.

Wikipedia on Singh:

In 2008, Singh was sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association for criticising their activities in a column in The Guardian.[1] A backlash to the ongoing lawsuit has resulted in the filing of formal complaints of false advertising against more than 500 individual chiropractors within one 24 hour period, one national chiropractic organization ordering its members to take down their websites,[2] and Nature Medicine noting that the case has gathered wide support for Singh, as well as prompting calls for the reform of English libel laws.[3]

Ernst and Singh’s Trick or Treatment is a guide to research on alternative treatments – a good read – I keep it at hand. Here is a list of the translations into other languages.

It looks as if the city council wants to counter the impression that nobody ought to sit down in the pedestrian precinct.

Or was this the plan all along? (The ‘water’ beneath is solid ice).