Secret police

For 9 months, every time I've seen a police man officer I have been turning on the camera on my phone and, with the phone to my ear and pretending to listen to my voicemail, I have been surreptitiously taking photos of the officer men's gigantic hats (larger than Saturn's rings, I estimate).

I have had two main difficulties with this: firstly, the flash tends to go off, and this raises suspicion; and secondly I am a terrible judge of the direction in which the camera is pointing. So I have a track record of arousing suspicion and as a reward I have a collection of useless photos of kerbs at 45 degrees.

A police man. Officer.

So yesterday I decided to walk up to a police man officer - he, no less, of traffic cop beeping horn phenomenon fame - and take a picture right in his face. He followed me, enquired grumpily about the photo; I showed him, and he said some things I didn't understand. Of course we have been here a while so can now understand about three words of Russian, including 'ne nada' which roughly translates to 'no need'. Well, it translates exactly. Anyway, I said a good British combination of sorry, ok, fine, sorry, yes, fine and was sure to keep my head down as I walked off. Of course the man, though he may be of the law, is completely wrong. I NEEDED the photo ... How else can I convey the sheer massiveness of his hat?!