The lives of Brians: a rant.

What's the point of a police force?

Well, nabbing wrong-doers and keeping the rest of us safe, probably.

Now, when you think about it, this is asking the police to be both very tough and very kind, depending upon whether they're dealing with the guilty or the innocent. 

And they can't even be sure which is which with half the time.

In Britain, the traditional way to solve the kind-but-tough thing is to give policemen bizarre hats:



but Thames Valley Police has been using another method to strike fear into criminals: yes, they've been giving their police horses extremely macho names.

As far as I know there isn't yet a police horse called Skull-Cruncher, but there's been a Pluto and a Trojan.

But Thames Valley Police have recently gone too far. They found a promising six-foot one-tonne Shire horse who looked just the right sort of material for the police, but unfortunately his name was...

...Brian.

Now, Thames Valley Police's plan was to change it to something tougher, like...I don't know, Woden? Dastardly?...but they reckoned without the colossal indignation this plan engendered in Brians everywhere.

'I think it's a marvellous name for a horse, it's a friendly name, you would want to be kept safe by a Brian,' said Brian Belo.

Another Brian Poulson, simply declared: 'every horse should be called Brian!'

But is Brian tough enough? 

Well, it seems it is, because Thames Valley Police, amazed at the outrage, has backed down.

'Following a lot of protests, it looks like Brian may keep his name,' said a spokesman.

Well, good for Brians everywhere, I say.

I'm just hoping no one starts a campaign to make all police horses wear bizarre hats.

Word To Consider Today: Brian. This word might be Celtic, where it means noble, perhaps from bre- which means hill and therefore exalted. Or it might be Old Occitan, where brian means maggot. 

PS. Sadly, in the end Brian failed to make it as a police horse. 

It turned out that people frightened him, rather.