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Summary of Neighbour's alarm for November 2008 - Posted at 7:53 PM on Saturday, December 6, 2008 by jrobertson
My nearest neighbour's alarm times were as follow:

6:28 PM Nov 23rd from web
6:19 PM Nov 23rd from web
5:51 PM Nov 12th from web *
6:48 PM Nov 6th from web
6:42 PM Nov 6th from web
8:01 PM Nov 5th from web
6:29 PM Nov 5th from web
7:56 PM Nov 4th from web   
Each time the alarm went off for approximately 10 seconds however on the 12th November I only heard it sound for about 5 seconds. Well it only went off 8 times this month that's 4 times less than last month so let's hope they can improve even more in December!
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Summary of nearest neighbour's alarm for October 2008 - Posted at 10:23 AM on Saturday, November 15, 2008 by jrobertson
Here is the log for October 2008 from my nearest neighbour's alarm:

7:13 PM Oct 25th
6:33 PM Oct 25th
6:06 PM Oct 23rd
9:43 PM Oct 19th
6:21 PM Oct 19th - 2008_10_19_18_20_28.mp3
6:07 PM Oct 19th - 2008_10_19_18_05_43.mp3
6:20 PM Oct 18th
5:24 PM Oct 13th
6:55 PM Oct 12th
7:31 PM Oct 7th
6:38 PM Oct 7th
6:26 PM Oct 7th

12 times the alarm went of this month, each time it goes for 10 seconds but each time I jump slightly and wonder what the noise is.  At first I used to just ignore it since it could have been the wind blowing the sensor which sets off the alarm, however it goes off mostly when there is no wind at all.

I have included 2 audio clips of the alarm going off so you can hear it for yourself. You may already know that I've been recording the audio every second of every day from the front and the rear of the house for over 12 months now.  In my view it gives me additional security knowing that any sounds which are strange,  concerning  or annoying can be played backed and used in evidence if necessary.
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What is perverting the course of justice? - Posted at 10:07 AM on Saturday, November 15, 2008 by jrobertson
I heard on the radio this morning about some daughter of a famous musician perverting the course of justice [mirror.co.uk].  What does that mean? My understanding was that it was about false allegations, used knowingly to falsely incriminate someone.

Here is an extract from Wikipedia:

Perversion of the course of justice takes the form of one of three acts:

  • Fabrication or disposal of evidence
  • Intimidating a witness or juror
  • Threatening a witness or juror

It is also criminal to conspire with another to pervert the course of justice and to intend to pervert the course of justice.


High-profile convictions

-- end of extract --

I'm sure this kind of thing happens all the time, it's just they don't always make it to the news.
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Summary of nearest neighbour's alarm going off for September 2008 - Posted at 9:20 PM on Thursday, October 9, 2008 by jrobertson
It only went off once this month  at 09:58 PM September 09, 2008. 

Noting for October it's not off to a good start as it went off 3 times the other day, and it's like it was intentional for what reason I do not know. 
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Quiet with a slight wind - Posted at 8:22 PM on Saturday, September 27, 2008 by jrobertson
It a saturday evening @ 20:23 and I have nothing to report, there is no youths in the park, no neighbour noises (or at least nothing more than voices occasionally). It's quiet, just how it should be, and let's hope it continues like this.
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Audio for walking along the streets at night - Posted at 9:22 PM on Wednesday, September 17, 2008 by jrobertson
Last night I recorded the audio of me walking through the streets, this is fairly typical for me these days.

The audio quality isn't that great however it's possible to make out a few sounds and a few words now and then.

The first sound file is from the motorcycle I mentioned.

file: fast-bike160908.ogg
duration: 37 seconds
file size: 125k

Note: There is a shallow speed bump which is intended to slow vehicles down however it doesn't work very well for bikes. The second vehicle you can hear is a small dark blue Suzuki van which is also speeding and it was obviously quite light and springy because it didn't have much trouble with the ramp.

The second sound file is from the main road to the side road crossing paths with the youths and their prams.

file: noisy160908.ogg
duration: 4 mins 2 secs.
file size: 773k

In the audio around 1min 25 seconds in you can here him say 'sorry pal' as he slows down at which point I overtake him and cross over to the other side of the road to reduce the risk of confrontation. Listening to it again I hear her say that she is on anti-depressants, most likely as a result of his behaviour or at least it wouldn't surprise me given the way he was behaving just now.

It's not really any of my business what they do however I have to keep my wits about me given that there are some people out there who most likely need protection from themselves.

Note: The device used to record the audio was a Nokia E61 using the ALON MP3 Dictaphone software with the recording format MP3 32kbps 16b 8kHz. The file was transferred to my laptop, then converted to WAV format, and then OGG format, and finally edited with Audacity.
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Walking along the streets at night - Posted at 9:45 PM on Tuesday, September 16, 2008 by jrobertson
About an hour ago I went for a walk along P****** Drive, and I observed 2 youths on a motorcycle without helmets, and driving in excess of 10-15MPH over the speed limit of 20 MPH.  Given the conditions of the road which was wet and slippery it wpi;d be difficult to brake in sufficient time if a vehicle suddenly turned on to the road.

Returning back along a side street I crossed paths with a group of youths with families who seemed to be returning to their living quarters.  I couldn't help but notice one of them seemed quite verbal about someone, and then he seemed to calm down a bit when his partner started to talk about something.  I overheard him say he was in jail at the same time as the naked rambler, it seemed to be a mild source of amusement for them, however for me this just made me more aware of their presence.

Thankfully they turned off to the left and I kept on walking with the intention to get back to the main street and return home. On the main street I passed someone who I'm sure was just unaware of me and just walking along like he normally does.  However having his hands in his pockets and walking a bit stiff with arms tucked into his sides, seemed like he was the type to carry a knife.

I'm not usually walking along streets at night so to other people I may seem a bit odd, I don't know, I just try to look like I'm getting from A to B without provoking a situation.

When I got home I remembered there was a Residents Association meeting tonight with a Police officer also in attendance.  I didn't attend as I feel there are no issues fr discussion, nor do I want to get involved.
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Summary of neighbour's Alarm for Aug 2008 - Posted at 12:52 PM on Saturday, September 6, 2008 by jrobertson
Nothing to report, other than peace and quiet! .
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Lazy driver with their 4x4 in the park - Posted at 7:12 PM on Tuesday, August 26, 2008 by jrobertson
At 16:47 today I spotted a 4x4 passenger vehicle driving along the back of the houses nearest to the park. The path he was driving along has no tracks, nor has it any signs of tyre tracks other than that of the parkland tractor which cuts the grass regularly.

At the speed he was driving along I doubted he was the park ranger, so I went out to investigate. He was parked quite far from the houses nearest to the woodland area to the back of the park, however I was determined to find out who he was since recently including today there has been a scrambler driving up and down the grassy area.

I walked past his vehicle into the woodland and then after about 10 minutes I appeared from the woodland nearest to his vehicle.  I don't have much to report other than to say he and his wife were simply exercising their dogs.

I took my phone along to record anything which may have been said.  You can listen to the audio here:

  • file: park-driver.ogg
  • file size: 91k
  • duration: 30 seconds
  • description: You can hear the driver raising his voice most likely directed towards his barking dogs, then he asks me if I'm looking for my dog, I say no and walk away from his vehicle.

I managed to take a note of his car registration plate as I may report him to the Police if he decides to make his driving journey into the woodland a regular occurence.
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Scrambler nuisance - Posted at 12:40 PM on Saturday, August 23, 2008 by jrobertson

Scrambler racing up my street

Scrambler racing down my street
  • Observation: A motorcycle scrambler rider races up my street dangerously fast without a helmet.
  • Date: 23 Aug 2008
  • Arrival time (past my home travelling up): 12:03:12pm
  • Departure time (past my home travelling down): 12:03:34pm
  • Duration (in the neighbourhood): 5 minutes
I managed to also capture the audio of the incident, you can listen to it from the link below.

Audio file: 2008_08_23_12_02_07.ogg
File size: 3.1M
Duration: 5 minutes and 6 seconds
Description: In the audio you can hear a motorcycle starting up from stop just a few houses away, it then screams up past my house and then seconds later it screams back down the road in the oppose direction.  It sounds as if the motorcycle stopped  again from where it first started.

To the best of my knowledge this isn't a local neighbour as I've never seen this bike before. I doubt I will see the bike again but if I do I will again blog it here.



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No more Scooter nuisance - Posted at 2:03 PM on Sunday, August 17, 2008 by jrobertson
Back from lunch at the parent's house, my mother had some interesting new about the recent bother with youths on my street. The youths on a scooter had been reported to the Police and the matter had been followed up apparently.

Mother has suggested that I don't phone the Police when these incidents occur and I have agreed I won't get involved. Unknown to them however I will record my observations and publish it on this blog.  I simply don't want to involve myself with trivial matters and the Police on a regular basis.

Neighbour skip problem
Half way down my street there is a NFH who was given this reputation by his nearest neighbours for numerous reasons.  The most recent gossip is that they have permanently placed a rubbish skip on the street road opposite their house.  The reason being is the man has a business and to avoid the expense of a skip for his business, he can get around the problem by dumping business waste in a domestic skip.

I know for a fact that local residents objected to the building work they had planned and followed through with recently. In the past year 2 of his neighbours have already sold their house, it may just be a coincidence or it may be that they are getting out of a neighbourhood which is not what it used to be.
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Scooter nuisance - Posted at 11:07 AM on Thursday, August 14, 2008 by jrobertson
2 boys on a Scooter

2 boys have been up and down my street at least 4 times in the past hour. I wouldn't mind so much however they are over the speed limit of 20MPH and they don't have helmets on. 
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Summary of Neighbour's alarm for July 2008 - Posted at 10:14 PM on Tuesday, August 5, 2008 by jrobertson
It went off only once if I remember correctly, and this was because it was genuine false alarm.  It was quite windy that day and they were out so I suspect it just went off with a little bit of help from the wind. 

I don't see why a burglar alarm should get confused between the wind and a burglar however that's another story.

That's a thumbs up this month then since it was 2 times less if went off than last month.
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4:15am 2 young adults being a minor nuisance - Posted at 3:04 PM on Thursday, July 31, 2008 by jrobertson
At about 4:15am i was awoken by the sound of a couple of youths walking down the street, I could hear gates banging so I was quite curious as to who it was since it's unusual to hear anyone out at this time.

I peered through the curtains but I didn't really get a good look at them, I expected thy would just pass so I went back to bed.

Here is the audio I captured from that incident:

Date: 31 Jul 2008
Time: 4:11:57
Duration: 2 minutes 35 seconds
File: 2008_07_31.ogg
File size: 1.6M
Description: You can hear a youth shouting 'hello' and gates being opened and shut as the walk down the street. This audio contains some strong language.

It's hardly worth my while make a note of this however they were acting suspiciously walking into people's property for some unknown reason.
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Summary of Neighbour's alarm going off June 2008 - Posted at 10:05 PM on Wednesday, July 2, 2008 by jrobertson
The alarm went off just a couple of times as far as I can remember. The dates were ...

June 24th 7:30 pm
June 25th 7:15 pm

That's an improvement on last month .
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Neighbour barbeque - Posted at 7:44 PM on Wednesday, June 4, 2008 by jrobertson
Current weather conditions: Clear sky, 18 Degrees Centigrade.

It's 19:45 and I'm at home listening to neighbour sounds, which is mostly playing music from their house so they can hear outside while they are having a barbeque.


You can listen to it from here.

file: 2008_06_04_neighbour_sounds.ogg
file size: 7,7M
music started at 19:39:30
amplified by: 1.3 Decibels
Software used: Audactity
Duration 11:24 mins
Description: You can hear from my backgarden music being played from their house.

It's the type of noise that is to be tolerated as it is summer after all.  However it's a good time to see where the sound is leaking into my livingroom, and bedroom.

*update 23:02 4-Jun-08*

The music stopped around 22:25 and some if not all of those guests left the event shortly afterwards. 
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Summary of neighbours alarm for May 2008 - Posted at 8:40 PM on Monday, June 2, 2008 by jrobertson
My nearest neighbour's alarm went off as follows (each time for 10 seconds):

  • 9-May-08 8:12pm
  • 9-May-08 8:23pm
  • 9-May-08 8:30pm
That's 3 times it went off last month, that's 1 more than the previous month (April) . At least it only went off on 1 day .
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Police telephone conversation recorded - Posted at 8:34 PM on Saturday, May 31, 2008 by jrobertson
I recorded the telephone conversation I had with the Police on the 14th April 2008 and I'm posting the first half of it here, as some of you may be inquisitive to know what to expect when calling the Police.

file; police_call_140408.ogg 
duration: 2 minutes 45 seconds
file size: 609K
description: You can hear the voice of a woman from the Lothian and Borders Police switchboard, followed by music, and then the Assistant that I spoke to.

The call quality isn't 100% perfect however it's good enough for what I need it for.  This call was a non-emergency so I didn't need any immediate assistance, if It was an emergency I would have dialled 999.
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Police at the door regarding opportunists - Posted at 7:54 PM on Thursday, May 22, 2008 by jrobertson
19:55 - In the past hour I've had a policeman at the door regarding opportunists looking for houses to break into.  I've not seen anything however I'm currently preparing my recordings for me to browse in the next hour or so.

silver car driving up the street
16:06hrs - webcam 1 - the silver car drives up my street. Observe the passenger is looking straight at the camera.


1st appearance of the silver car driving up the street
16:06hrs - webcam 2 - the silver car driving up my street.


silver car driving back down the street before the culdesac16:10hrs - webcam 2 - the silver car passing my house in the opposite direction.



silver car driving into the culdesac
16:10hrs - webcam 1 - the silver car drives into the culdesac.



silver car leaving the area16:12hrs - webcam1 - the silver car leaves this part of the street. It's difficult to see but the driver was looking at the camera.

I've also listened to the audio recording however I didn't hear anything unusual.

Note: The Police officer asked me if I saw any silver car turning at the junction at around 4pm however I told him that I did not, as I was not home at that time. 

I'm certain the silver car in question is the one that I've noted here.

If you check my image filenames you will notice the date time stamp does not match the actual dates, this is because my webcamera clocks are not accurate, however the ftp server does record the correct time when the file was created.


*update 13:01 24-May-2008*

Here's the transcript from the conversation I had with the policeman on that day

19:10:50 - The police man opens my gate
19:11:00 - The police man rings my door bell
19:11:25 - The police man tries my side gate
19:11:30 - The police man climbs over my garden fence to get into my back garden
19:11:45 - Policeman is looking around outside my property
19:12:30 - The Policeman looks around the front of my house
19:13:36 - I open the door

19:13:37 - me: Hello
19:13:38 - police man: Hi there, sorry to bother you.
19:13:40 - police man: I was kind of hoping there would be someone in.
19:13:43 - police man: We've had a couple of calls about a couple of house breakers. Down at the cross-roads it's the last houses as you come up ********* Drive.
me: Yes
police man: Right on the corner.
police man: A couple of suspicious guys knocked on their door, eh .. answered through his bedroom window. "ah We're looking for Mr Green" and he replied "no one from the name of Mr Green lives here" ... looked like drug addict types.
19:14:06 - police man: They've got in a silver car ...
19:14:08 - police man: driven up here turned at the junction
19:14:10 - me: yes
19:14:11 - police man: You could'na see ?... I spoke to you elderly neighour and she's ... she was out, it was about 4 o'clock
19:14:20 - me: yes
19:14:21 - police man: you've no ...
19:14:23 - me: I've been out as well so I've not spotted much.
19:14:27 - police man: right ... The only reason I'm ... ah ... I've been around in your back garden having a look because I got no reply from your door.
19:14:30 - me: yes
19:14:30 - police man: ... and I saw there was windows open.
19:14:32 - police man: eh ... there's been a house broken into further down ****** Crescent
19:14:36 - me: right
19:14:36 - police man: ...ehmm .. I was just a bit concerned your door was lying open
19:14:42 - police man: I take it there's nothing to untowards
19:14:43 - police man: They're obviously casing the area
19:14:47 - police man: They've made good their escape but I've got a registration of a vehicle
so all I'm going to say is if you leave your doors and windows make sure they're securely shut when leaving the house.
19:14:55 - police man: alright
19:14:56 - me: yes
19:14:57 - police man: ok doke, thank you very much for your time sir.
19:14:59 - police man: This was about 4 o'clock, you were out then were you.
19:15:00 - me: I've been out. yes
19:15:01 - police man: oh all right
19:15:01 - me: I'll have a look ... I'll have a check to see if there's anything
19:15:05 - police man: she says it was a driver and passenger ... this neighbour down at the corner ... both got out came up to the house and they were there for a couple of minutes ...  went back down ... so whether they might have been trying to put them off cause I think they were suspicious.
19:15:19 - me: mmm
19:15:20 - police man: so ... if they both got out and go to the door so it would look like they are looking for a Mr Green ...
19:15:23 - me: good
19:15:24 - police man: Could be that ...
19:15:26 - police man: so just beware. Ok
19:15:27 - me: ok

19:15:30 - I close the door

Note: I heard the door bell ring but I was unable to answer the door at the time. I then hoped who ever it was would just go away since it's not unusual to get people trying to sell things on days like that. However I spotted the Policeman on my webcamera so I answered the front door.

*update 4 Jun 2008*
The Police caught the burglars the next day (23rd May).  Here is the reply  email I received this morning:

James
 
Thank you very much indeed for the excellent information in relation to the above.
 
Myself and DC xxxxxxxxxxxx at the Divisional Crime Unit have been dealing with this case.
 
Just to update you, both males were caught on the 23/05 after a series of housebreakings across the city and a car chase at which time, one of the males ran the car into a police officer. As a result, numerous charges have been libelled, a decent amount of property has been recovered and one of the males has been remanded.
 
Thank you once again
 
DC xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Div Crime Unit
xxxxxxxx CID
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Wrong number - Posted at 11:12 PM on Thursday, May 15, 2008 by jrobertson
Someone called me about 4:30pm today, no idea who it was, I said to them that they must have the wrong number, they agreed and then hung up.

You can listen to the audio file Message202.amr

It's probably nothing however I don't give this mobile telephone number out to anybody other than the people who already have it who are my father, nephew, brother-in-law, and my brother's friend.

My nephew has been in some trouble recently that's why I have to keep alert to any news I hear from the family or through the mobile phone.
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