Ridiculous reality

Do you come across real events that you are sure would be regarded as seriously preposterous if you wrote them into a story?

The recent example that set this off in my head goes as follows: bikini-babe off-duty police officer chases down a thief and holds him until back-up arrives. It sounds like trashy Hollywood bollocks.

Would you put something like that in a story and expect people to treat it as anything other than a bit of Baywatch-inspired trash?

Except it's on the BBC news site, and this is July not April 1. Bikini-clad Swedish policewoman 'stops thief' - BBC News

Maybe I'm just strange, but I find myself taking it as a personal affront that reality comes up with stuff that feels too ridiculous to go in a story.

Actually check her out on Google - she's one scary lady

WaylanderToo said:

she's one scary lady

Click to expand...

I don't know about scary, but certainly impressive. She puts me in mind of a very nice, quite petite woman who was working on her black belt back when I was learning karate. One of the katas she was working on is called Bassai Dai (translates to something like storming the castle) - that was scary.

I think it's sad that in 2017 we think a woman can't do her job wearing a bikini and it's seen as unbelievable, the stuff of TV and film. You bet I'd put something like this in a story. She's a police officer, the bikini doesn't change her skills.

AnyaKimlin said:

I think it's sad that in 2017 we think a woman can't do her job wearing a bikini and it's seen as unbelievable, the stuff of TV and film. You bet I'd put something like this in a story. She's a police officer, the bikini doesn't change her skills.

Click to expand...

Well, now, there are a lot of people working to try and get women better uniforms in comic books and SF covers, so they don't have to do that.

On the very first 'It'll be alright on the night' way back when, many years ago, an interviewer went up to a shirtless guy sunbathing in the park, and said (very condescendingly) "If I said to you there was a problem with low level ozone in this area would you understand what I'm talking about?" and the guy replied: "Yeah, I'm a particle physicist." Go to 5 minutes and 13 seconds to see it: It'll Be Alright On The Night. - MBClub UK - Bringing together Mercedes Enthusiasts

AnyaKimlin said:

She's a police officer, the bikini doesn't change her skills.

Click to expand...

Doesn't change her skills, or her attitude - she reacted as a police officer. On the other hand, I don't really see the bikini catching on as police uniform. I don't know what standard Swedish police uniform looks like, but I imagine it would include something like a stab-vest.

Biskit said:

Doesn't change her skills, or her attitude - she reacted as a police officer. On the other hand, I don't really see the bikini catching on as police uniform. I don't know what standard Swedish police uniform looks like, but I imagine it would include something like a stab-vest.

Click to expand...

It depends if she's a uniformed officer or a detective, and what she's doing.

It used to be in the UK that a police officer was never off duty. I've seen my uncle chase down people in a variety of clothing - safari suits were his garb of choice for awhile.

My aunt was an experienced nurse she certainly wouldn't have stopped to put on clothing if she needed to do her job.

Reality does that all the time.

Apparently Hollywood once turned down a script about a Colombian drug cartel trying to buy a used-Russian submarine because its too ridiculous.

Except it actually happened. They really did try.

AnyaKimlin said:

It depends if she's a uniformed officer or a detective, and what she's doing.

It used to be in the UK that a police officer was never off duty. I've seen my uncle chase down people in a variety of clothing - safari suits were his garb of choice for awhile.

My aunt was an experienced nurse she certainly wouldn't have stopped to put on clothing if she needed to do her job.

Click to expand...

I think it depends on circumstances and perception of risk. I have never worked in a job with a uniform, but had several arguments with a former boss about appropriate attire in the laboratory. I worked with liquid nitrogen quite frequently and he felt that shorts and open sandals were unacceptable. My reasoning, which he did not like, was that the standard safety protocol for an LN spill was to quickly remove any affected clothing to prevent frostbite damage due to trapped LN, so the sandals and shorts were the safest things to wear.

These days, minimum safety attire is a pair of wellies. I have yet to rush out of the house to deal with a livestock problem without at least grabbing a bath robe as well, but the wellies are essential just for grip. I did once run out to investigate a dog/chicken crisis without changing out of the indoor sandles, met a bit of soft ground and landed bum-first.

At the moment I'm reading about Cortez and three hundred adventurers seizing control of an empire of 2 million by taking the emperor as a hostage. Nothing that happens in the real world surprises me. Fiction can't touch reality for unlikely and bizarre incidents.

Biskit said:

I think it depends on circumstances and perception of risk. I have never worked in a job with a uniform, but had several arguments with a former boss about appropriate attire in the laboratory. I worked with liquid nitrogen quite frequently and he felt that shorts and open sandals were unacceptable.

Click to expand...

When it comes to something like the police and medical professions when I was growing up it wasn't about the risk to yourself it was about the risk to the victim/patient. A policewoman off duty no matter what she's doing is unlikely to sit back and watch it happen - that would be more unrealistic.

Biskit said:

Do you come across real events that you are sure would be regarded as seriously preposterous if you wrote them into a story?

Click to expand...

If my day job had a sub title, it would be:

Biskit said:

Do you come across real events that you are sure would be regarded as seriously preposterous if you wrote them into a story?

Click to expand...

I find life as a whole that way. The other day I was wondering why there are starving people in the world and yet millions of pet owners have enough money to feed meat to their animals. Somehow humanity can't spread it's wealth to the poorest people in the world. We treat our pets better than we treat other humans, and still there isn't a daily outrage among us all over this... oh crikey I've gone all soap box... I'm so sorry. It strikes me as something that when you think about it seems so ridiculous it couldn't be true.

Umm... I'm going to go off topic because I can't let that stand unanswered.

First a Declaration of Interest here, since I've been a cat owner for most of my adult life. But even if that wasn't so I hope I'd find the spending-money-on-pets argument to be wholly specious. We all make choices as to how we spend our money. I don't drink, don't smoke, don't go clubbing, don't buy CDs or video games or fancy mobile phones, but I do choose to share my life with animals which bring me comfort and companionship, and as a necessary corollary of that I have to spend money on them -- indeed it's a criminal offence not to take care of a pet's needs including dietary and health needs, and a cat cannot eat a vegetarian diet.

Unless someone in the Western world lives in the most basic of accommodation, eats frugally, never goes out, never buys clothes or anything else, and sends all his spare income to charities such as Oxfam, he can also be criticised for the choices he makes, but I don't see remarks such as "There are starving people in the world but he has enough money to get a season ticket to watch football and have sky TV".

It isn't that we treat pets better than humans, it's that we treat ourselves better than we treat others. I don't pretend to be any more virtuous than my neighbour in that respect, but I'm damned if I'm going to be looked down on as being far worse.

The Judge said:

Umm... I'm going to go off topic because I can't let that stand unanswered.

Click to expand...

And staying off topic... as well as the sheep, the chickens etc, we have four cats, three of which were not our choice - they turned up, they hung around, they became friends we have welcomed into our home. And, from time to time, they bring supper, which we have to remember to drop in the compost before it starts to smell. They have also suppressed that rat infestation that plagued both us and our neighbours, largely drawn by the chickens and the chicken feed. So we have four-legged friends and co-workers.

J D Foster said:

We treat our pets better than we treat other humans, and still there isn't a daily outrage among us all over this... .

Click to expand...

Of course I do. Just like other family members would come before any other human. The black fluffy thing on the end of my bed is a creature I interact with every day. My pet isn't starving because I feet him meat - he's starving because of corruption in the world's governments. There's plenty of food for everyone but I'm responsible for that cat.

stripping out the obvious and keen emotional responses that my flippant and childlike understanding of the world will generate. And indeed substituting pets, with CD's, football strips for the kids, handbags, shoes, cars or pornography (or any other thing we may waste our money on). And baring in mind that I am a very simple minded person, I mean that quite genuinely I am not intelligent. But it strikes me to be a prime example of how ludicrous the real world is, when some people starve, while other people feed their pets meat.

I single out this example as, 1) I recently heard it in a reggae lyric, and it struck me how a man from the ghetto said he would be glad to eat the food in his rich ruling class opposite's dog bowl. 2) My Sci Fi universe is set in a world where the planet Earth can no longer sustain crops to feed humans, let a one animals for the human's to eat. Therefore everyone in my world is by necessity a vegetarian.

Please don't take it as a slur on any particular pet owners, there are good and bad pet owners. I myself spent £6 today on food for my daughter's pet fish. And I find the notion of imprisoning fish in a tiny cell is repulsive to me.

I simply meant it as an example of something I found to be ridiculous when looked at it simplistic terms, (and believe me that is all I'm capable of) that some can feed their pets while others can't feed themselves.

AnyaKimlin said:

When it comes to something like the police and medical professions when I was growing up it wasn't about the risk to yourself it was about the risk to the victim/patient

Click to expand...

And back on-topic...

I can see you have a very different experience from mine - so much of my student days and early working life was spend around machinery and materials that would maim or kill if not treated with the proper respect. Safety considerations, proper attire and procedures were important, and rushing in was actively discouraged.

As another example of preposterous reality - would you find it credible that a sensible scientist would work with equipment with his fingers millimeters from live terminals primed to deliver a pulse of thousands of volts with ten-plus amps behind it to provide killing power? It's crazy. Cue the overly-dramatic music for the moment said scientist notices the red warning light to say the generator is live.

It's just the way my predecessor as a post-grad built the equipment. OK, there was no dramatic music, just the mental 'oh ****', and that distinctive adrenaline rush. All part of the learning experience to ask the question - is it safe?

(Said scientist got a safety interlock fitted to the equipment. How sensible said scientist was/is is still open to debate...)

AnyaKimlin said:

think it's sad that in 2017 we think

Click to expand...

~checks my calendar~

J D Foster said:

I simply meant it as an example of something I found to be ridiculous when looked at it simplistic terms, (and believe me that is all I'm capable of) that some can feed their pets while others can't feed themselves.

Click to expand...

I think a better example (because less emotive) would be that there are many people (in fact pretty much all of us) who douse themselves with litres of fresh clean water each day, all destined for the drain, when there are people who can't even get some to drink.