When biblebashers go bad

I was startled by a huge Examiner headline this week. It read ‘Ungallant police officers made speeder even later for church’.
But when I read the story, my wee daughter was concerned for my health, having found me on the floor, bent double, clutching my stomach and shrieking with laughter.
Sadly it’s not on line, but the jist of it is as follows:
Police clocked a 61 year old woman doing at least 45 in a 40 zone, just before a village. Apparently she was late for church.
Our boys in blue are usually lenient with minor speeders, preferring to concentrate on serious headbangers. We have no speed limits outside town and well signed 40 zones just before and after. So usually you get a polite reminder of why the few limits are there and sent on your way.
I’ve had a few myself over the years, but no follow ups. In TT Week I once saw a copper studiously ignore a stark naked biker cruising down Douglas prom with an Alsatian on the pillion, so the bar is not exactly low.
Yet this woman ended up in court, where she got a £150 fine and three penalty points. This tells me at once she must have lost it big style and annoyed them into prosecuting.
You get a hint of this from a letter read out in court in which she claimed the police ‘simply sprang out of their hiding place’ and this was the ‘very height of ungallantry’ which made her even later for church. Well, tut tut!
She went on to say that as getting to church was so expensive and life would be ‘intolerable’ without evensong where she could ‘rejoice in tribulation’ she now planned to return to Canada. Her diatribe ended sniffily with: “They do also say of the Isle of Man that nice people come here but they don’t stay. Why should they. Good riddance!”
Need a hand onto that plane with your bags, dear?
I wonder. Is it possible all those fundies on the Police Consultative Forum, forever ranting on about relaxing parking restrictions near churches and so on, have finally exasperated the police into action?
If so, can I also point out the habit evangelicals have of parking their cars with two wheels on the pavement close to their favoured faith hovels. Not hard to spot – newish Chelsea Tractors or people carriers in naff colours, fish signs on the back, personalised plates like ‘MAN460D’, close to a church with the door open and the sound of tuneless wailing wafting from within. Don’t even need to worry any more about a Chief Constable stood at the church door, prayer book in hand, dragging victims in and waving parking wardens away.
Go on officers: make my day. You KNOW you want to!