A Metropolitan Police officer who suffered serious head injuries while investigating a robbery has died.

Armed officers attempted to stop a vehicle in Stratford, east London, early on Saturday morning.

They followed the car to Ashlin Road in Newham, where 37-year-old PC Gary Toms was critically injured.

Pc Toms, who joined the force in January 2002, has been described as a "dedicated officer" who was known for his "professional attitude".

Gary, 37, joined the service in January 2002. He moved to CO19 in November 2008. Prior to that he has served within the TSG and Barking and Dagenham borough.

Ch Supt Bill Tillbrook, in charge of the Met’s Specialist Firearms Command, said: “My deepest sympathies go to Gary’s family, friends and colleagues at this distressing time. Gary was a dedicated officer who died doing the job he had trained to do. He was a hard working police officer who was known amongst his colleagues for his sense of humour and professional attitude.”

The Commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson said: "This is especially poignant news given that Gary died on the 25th anniversary of Yvonne Fletcher's death.

"It shows us all that the potential dangers officers face when doing their duty are never far away.

“To lose such a young and promising officer is the most tragic of losses for his family - my most sincere condolences to them. This is also a loss that the wider Met family should not, and never will, forget."

I don't know if we ever met in a professional capacity, but that doesn't matter, my thoughts go out to his colleagues, friends and families. I was following the story since Sunday and hoping that he would recover.

A court in Sweden has jailed four men behind The Pirate Bay (TPB), the world's most high-profile file-sharing website, in a landmark case.

Now the IFPI should go after Google for doing the same thing (hint, type the name of a copyrighted bit of media and the word 'torrent' into Google's search box).

Once Google has been found guilty they should go after the ISP's, after all, it is their service that lets people download illegal content.

After the ISPs, they should sue Apple and Microsoft because they make the software that runs on your computer that lets you connect to the internet to download copyrighted content.

After Apple and Microsoft they should sue the power companies because they provide the power that computers use to download illegal content.

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My question would be - how much of those damages payments are actually going to go to the artists? I know that if I were an artist being handled by one of the big companies I'd ask for that amount to be pointed out in my royalty payment. I think it'd be a rather small amount.

I know I like to parody government snooping powers, but I think that ORG have outdone me here.

Take a look at Statebook - it is a spoof government site, listing some of the information government holds on an individual citizen.

The site also shows what what new information the Government want to collect, through new schemes, like the “Intercept Modernisation
Programme” which could even include amassing all of our Internet traffic data in a single government database.

For some reason I find myself back on that street, standing on the spot where the young girl died.

I haven't thought of her for years, a teenage girl being driven by her parents told them that she was feeling sick so they pulled over and parked up. She opened the car door, vomited, and just dropped dead.

I drive past that spot a lot and I remember the call but I don't really think about it, about her, about her family. It's just one of those places that you tend to remember, a little tickle of recognition as you go past it on the way to another drunk asleep in the street.

I haven't had a repeat job down that street, the ones either side are common places for us to go, but that street I've never revisited.

So why do I wake up from a dream where I'm just standing there. There are no people, no wailing parents, no ambulance parked behind my FRU, there is no patient.

So why am I there?

As I lay in bed the job goes through my mind. This job was before the latest changes to the resuscitation guidelines, if we had been using the ones we do now would she have survived? What caused her to just die like that, normally healthy children shouldn't die. How are her parents, do they mourn her every day?

In my dream it was the same time of day, sun going down behind the trees just dark enough that I wasn't sure that she wasn't breathing. The bottle of water was there, the one that her parents were going to give her after she finished being sick. I remember that bottle - if was the only thing left behind after I returned to the scene with the ambulance crew to pick up my car. Why is that in my dream?

And as close my eyes and think of the job I realise that I don't know her name. I was there at the end of her life, pounding on her chest in the back of a speeding ambulance in an effort to keep her alive, I was closer to her than her parents - but I don't know her name.

I must have known it once, if only to put on my paperwork, but now that name is gone. I can't remember ever knowing it.

She'd have been eighteen now.

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While I don't know why she died, there are organisations that raise awareness for such things - CRY and SADS

"Kelly" Grayson and me are quite different people - we live half a world apart, we are on opposite ends of the political spectrum and the debate on gun control and socialised medicine.

None of that matter because he's a top bloke and a regular blog read of mine. Kelly is a Paramedic in the South United States and has been writing the 'A Day In The Life Of An Ambulance Driver' blog for as long as I can remember. I often leave his site either laughing of shaking my head in amazement.

As I am obviously an influential member of the blogging community (subsection: medical whining) Kelly saw fit to throw me a free review copy of his new book - 'En Route'.

I read it in one sitting (actually a lie, I read it in one 'laying' as I read it in bed). Starting with his first days on the job and the sheer fear and confusion that brings through calls that are memorable, heartbreaking and hilariously funny Kelly has done some seriously entertaining writing.

Taken from his blog the book is a collection of short stories - like sitting in a bar listening to a mate tell you about the jobs that stick in his head, I reckon that Kelly must be a born entertainer.

He's also an excellent medic - I've learned a few things reading his writing, and not just about the crazy way the American ambulance services work.

What underlies a large part of the book is his very distinct voice - the US South is a culture of it's own and that really shines through in this book. The superb medic, the tone of voice and the humour and anger that strikes us ambulance lot makes this a unique book, and one I was sad to finish. Even though it's a bit of a busman's holiday and I remember a number of stories from the blog I still wanted to read more.

At the moment 'En Route' is only available in the US, but Amazon do international shipping (it's about £5 to the UK), and in my opinion it's well worth the extra cost.

UPDATE: The book is available in the UK - and it's well worth the cost - The Route: A Paramedic's Stories of Life, Death, and Everything in Between

Ah, poor old Daphne and Celeste - a popette duet from the turn of the century. Some record executive thought that it would be a good idea to have two fifteen year old girls* sing rather vapid bubblegum pop. Who can forget the classic 'Stick you' or the legendary 'U.G.L.Y' infectious like playground herpes they attracted ridicule immediately.

They disappeared as quickly as they appeared and haven't troubled anyone since**.

I wonder sometimes, in those quiet hours of the morning when the hallucinations start, what they are up to now. I picture an older, wiser Daphne (whichever of the two that one was) sitting her daughter on her knee, then starting the DVD with her music videos on it.

"That's me", she tells her daughter, "but let's keep that our little secret".

The DVD returned to the top shelf at the back of the bookcase, she cautions her daughter on the perils of the pop business.

You see, back in 2000 Daphne and Celeste played the Leeds and Reading Rock Festival.

The important word in that sentence is 'Rock'.

You see, the normal sorts of bands that play the Leeds/Reading festivals are rock bands, bands like the Foo Fighters, Placebo, Muse and Rage Against The Machine and the audience of the festival know this. The people who go to the Leeds/Reading festival are adults who like their music to have some guitar to it, but are happy to listen to a bit of Chemical Brothers or The Streets if the mood takes them.

Daphne and Celeste were pretty much the antithesis of this type of music, anybody in their target age range who go to Leeds/Reading are the sort who listen to My Chemical Romance or spray their hair blue for the weekend.

Poor Daphne, poor Celeste - their recording label had no doubt booked them for the 'controversy' as they first took the stage at Leeds. I wonder if the girls realised this and tried to get out of performing, only to be 'spoken to' by their record company.

They weren't so much booed off, they were showered with plastic bottles. Plastic bottles filled with urine.

And who threw those bottles? The people who like the slightly strange music, the non-mainstream, those who were bullied because they liked 'goth' or 'emo' or 'indie'. Finally they could pick on someone who wouldn't fight back.

Due to the way the Leads/Reading festival is organised poor Daphne and Celeste were scheduled to play Reading the next day. Rumours spread around the camp, would they get the same reception as at Leeds? Would they perform behind a plexiglass shield? Would they really turn up?

I remember standing at the back of the crowd when they were due to perform, I wasn't a huge fan but the pair had a ten minute set between two bands that I fancied seeing (ironically bands whose names have since escaped my memory).

They came on stage, staying towards the back of the stage the first bar of their song played over the sound system.

From where I stood I could no longer see the stage. Like the scene in '300' where the arrows block out the sun, the stage was blocked out by bottles full of urine.

Hundreds of people were throwing bottles of piss at two young girls.

How 'rebellious'.

The audience played right into the record label's hands, providing them with the most talked about story of the event.

A loud, violent and messy protest ended up achieving exactly the opposite.

What would have been more effective would have been if everyone just quietly turned their back on the two of them, non-violent, yet signalling disgust at the blatant whoring from the record company.

Instead of that, all these 'mature', 'intelligent' and 'people of musical taste' perpetrated an act of violence against two young women.

You can only imagine what the girl's parents thought, I wonder if they realised that they had 'pimped out' their children to the music industry, an industry not exactly known for treating it's performers as anything other than trained cattle.

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Here is the video of their performance at Reading. I wonder if those that threw the bottles are still proud of what they did.

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*Or maybe not fifteen - accounts vary, if you believe IMDB Daphne at least would have been nineteen, if you believe the NME she would have been younger.

** Daphne (real name Karen Diconcetto) appeared in the film 'The House is Burning'

The Government has introduced new legislation forcing people who write letters to one another to provide a photocopied duplicate to the Post Office. The Home Office has stated that this will help protect the UK against terrorism, organised crime, illegal immigration and child pornography.

The new legislation has been squeezed through the EU government due to it being classified as 'commercial' rather than 'legal' thus needing only a majority vote rather than a unanimous decision.

Those in favour of the law waved around pictures taken during the 7/7 bombings suggesting that this 'commercial' undertaking will prevent a repeat attack.

The duplicated versions will be stored digitally and not, like medical notes, in unsecured corridors.

Access to the data collected will be regulated under the RIP Act which means that only people who have a genuine need will be able to check on the content of your post. A government spokesman said, "unlike previous, perhaps overzealous, applications of the RIP Act this time will be different, honest, I promise it will be. Just like this new law will also protect us against terrorists who use the post to spread their hate.".

Rumours that Amazon.com will have to provide another copy to the government of every book and DVD they send out by post is unconfirmed.

Also unconfirmed is the thought that several terrorist groups have drunk cups of tea while planning their crimes, thereby needing emergency powers to stop the spread of this foul liquid*.

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Really - go join the Open Rights Group. Even if you don't want to give them money, consider volunteering for them (I do when I can) They are fighting against stuff like this and our new head Jim Killock is mentioned in the original story that I'm (poorly) parodying.

*Joke ruthlessly stolen from the genius Douglas Adams.

First off - an apology for the lack of writing on this blog, this is partly due to the pain in my testicles and partly because such pain has meant I can't work. This has meant a dearth of writing material.

As I write this I'm waiting for an ultrasound scan report to be emailed to my GP, something that has taken seven days to not arrive. Oh well. I've also 'misplaced' my little black book of things to write about, which means that I've got very little to write about that is ambulance based.

Unfortunately I've also been hit by a bit of depression, something that I suspect is unconnected with my current testicle problem, and more something to do with the increasing sunlight finally giving me the energy to be depressed. Some studies suggest that there are increasing suicides at this time of the year because the increasing sunlight finally gives the seasonal depressives enough energy to 'do something about it'.

So, to keep busy, and to keep writing, I shall spend this week writing about some of the weird and wonderful things that I've been thinking about of late - So expect to see things written about 'Daphne and Celeste', the Chinese in TV crime dramas and racism in World of Warcraft. With a bit of luck this will keep me out of trouble.

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For those that are interested, the sequel to my first book seems to be going fine as I have the copyedited manuscript to read.