Goodnight all - from the Skeptical Bobby

It's been one hell of a ride.

Two years ago, I was boozily regaling my mate Sid Rodrigues with tales from my curious police career and, before you could say 'I want to believe!' Sid - creator of the Skeptics in the Pub network - had roped me in to do a 45minute talk at SITP Camden. Well, the Camden gig went okay ... and, next thing I know, I'm being asked to speak at QEDCon 2013, the biggest of all UK Skeptics meetings.*

As I was pretty much an unknown, they put me on first. But, as it happened, that worked in my favour as I played to a full house. All of the subsequent speakers had to share the audience with various panels being run in other rooms. Maybe that's the reason that my talk - The Skeptical Bobby - proved to be one of the most popular of the event; basically because more people saw my talk than other talks. That said, it did seem to go down well. I even got a standing ovation from Richard Dawkins himself although when he tweeted the same message - 'Superb talk at QEDCon by Stevyn Colgan. Intelligent and humane' - it proved to be a double-edged sword. My Twitter follower count suddenly leapt up by around 450 ... but around half of that number turned out to be Dawkins haters and I was trolled for several months. Eek.

What happened next was mad.

SITP groups from all over the UK started asking me to come and perform the talk in their town. And, as I was keen to get some exposure for myself and my book, I said yes to them all. Which is why, between April 2013 and March 2014, I gave this talk a further 76 times.

Well, I say 'this talk'; no two performances were ever quite the same. I have more than 30 years' worth of stories and experience to draw on and the talk often went off in unexpected directions. And it got longer. By the end of the run, it regularly topped 90 mins and I hit a spectacular two hours in Newcastle. People still seemed to enjoy it though. And I never got close to making a 45 minute talk last as long as Robin Ince can. The man is a genius.

I should perhaps explain that my talk was all about grass roots skepticism; about the need to question the world about us and not to accept things blindly or without evidence. I took the audience on an autobiographical journey through my childhood, explaining how I buggered up my school career and then joined the police for a bet; how my career in the police service went similarly tits-up because I fought against police procedures that I thought were wrong; how ultimately I was vindicated and became part of an experimental unit at Scotland Yard designing innovative ways to tackle crime and disorder; and how, thanks to a chance meeting with Douglas Adams, my whole life changed direction. As the posters said, 'If you want to know how lollipops can reduce anti-social behaviour, or how wheelie bins can prevent burglaries, or how a dog show can save lives ... this talk is for you.'

The Skeptical Bobby took me to SITP groups as far afield as Glasgow, Lincoln, Birmingham, Cheltenham ... in fact, the only two regions I wasn't booked by were Wales and my own native South West, which was a shame. I also performed at the Edinburgh Festival (where I broke my foot), Hay, Latitude, the Harrogate International Festival, Cornbury, Salon London, the Village Green Festival, Geekfest, CreatED and various British Humanist events. And I appeared on the Little Atoms and Skeptic Canary Podcasts, the Australian Skeptic Zone podcast, Josie Long's Shortcuts on Radio 4, and an episode of the excellent panel show Do the Right Thing.

On top of all that, I was also doing gigs to promote my book, appearing on stage in the Ig Nobel Prizes UK tour, acting as a judge for the Transmission Prize 2013, researching for QI and researching and writing for the Museum of Curiosity, and writing a new book. What a mad 12 months!

But all good things come to an end and the run is now over. In many ways I wish I could do more shows; I've already had people approach me to do more but I've had to be firm and say no. I'm sorry if you missed it but I simply don't have enough spare time now.

Doing that many shows in such a short time and in such a wide variety of venues has been a brilliant learning experience. And, who knows? I may go back on the road with a new show sometime in the future.

You can't keep a skeptical bobby down.

I'll end by thanking everyone around the UK I've met - the thousands of you! - for your hospitality and support. It's been a huge pleasure to do the talk and I'm genuinely honoured that you asked me 'round your gaffs.

*Should it be skeptics or sceptics? I was always taught that the British way was sceptic (hence my spelling on the Powerpoint slide in the first photo). However, many linguists insist that the K version is more accurate than the C as it's from a Greek word and they would have used the K. But you decide.

Boys in Blue - Step by Step

Another painting in my Cliché Britain series. This one was a little different. The four previous painting - Meat and Two Veg, Vicars and Tarts, Fisherman's Friends and Teacher's Pet - were all completed in full colour on 50.5 x 40.5cm (20" by 16") box canvases:

 

However, while painting Teacher's Pet, I found myself wondering if I could do a painting that is monochromatic. The obvious thing to do was something in sepia or shades of grey but no subject (or attendant cliché) jumped out at me. But then the phrase Boys in Blue occurred to me and the painting virtually jumped fully formed into my head. Plus, I had a couple of sketches left over from when I did the prize painting for Constable Colgan's Connectoscope:

So, here's the sketch and first blocking in. I decided to use a smaller 30 x 40cm canvas and to mask off an outer frame (with masking tape - what else?) so that the finished portrait would look something like an old-fashioned photo:

My first idea was to make the helmet comically small, such as those you buy from joke shops. But, as the painting progressed, it became obvious that a full sized helmet would work better and the painting would fit better into the series. So I resized it and began to build up the depth of colour and shading.

I took some liberties with the word 'blue' by adding a touch of quinacridone magenta (which has some blue in it) to the background. It's such a beautiful colour and it helped lift the figure off the canvas. I took off the masking tape at this point and painted in some eyes, buttons and collar numbers.

The final job was to tidy up generally, sort out the asymmetric sideburns, and shrink the helmet badge which, I realised, was way too big. For accuracy there should also be a chin strap ... I'm not sure what to do about that. Sigh. I'll probably just leave it. Any road up - here's the finished painting:

And, yes, I know it bloody looks like me again. Apparently. I must address this with the next painting.

Problem Solving 101

Since speaking at QEDCon at the weekend, I've had lots of very kind and complimentary emails, tweets and comments and I feel very flattered. Thank you! Meanwhile, people have also asked if I can summarise the key points of what I talked about and maybe describe my methodology and some of the main tools and techniques I used when tackling crime and community safety problems. Well, it would take a whole book to cover it all. I could write that book (and, indeed, my agent has been pushing me to do so) but it doesn't exist yet. So, in the meantime, here's a rough bluffer's guide.

I worked for the Metropolitan Police Problem Solving Unit. Our little team - five cops and an analyst - all came from a variety of backgrounds and we all had some expertise in a range of skills and knowledge. Our job was to help others to find sustainable solutions to persistent problems that hadn't responded to traditional enforcement methods. And by 'enforcement' I'm talking about the widest possible range of legal options available to public-service organisations all working together in partnership; organisations like town and county councils, local authorities, housing departments, social services, schools and colleges, health trusts, fire and rescue etc. Incidentally, that 'partnership' word will crop up time and time again. It's not just a nod to political correctness or a fashionable buzz-phrase. It was a really vital component of what we did. Problem solving isn't just a case of coming up with a bunch of mad ideas and hoping that one of them works. It's a science. And it can be used for tackling anything from dog poop on the pavements to international terrorism. It works like this. Crime, and indeed all problems, have three components:

There is always something or someone that is causing the problem, someone or something that is affected by the problem, and a place in time and space where the two of them come together - that's where and when the problem occurs (i). This may seem like common sense. And it is. But our natural tendency as human beings is to simplify matters, so we tend to focus only on the cause. If I can use a medical analogy here, if your problem is malaria, focusing on the individual mosquitoes is all very well. But, while you're doing that, the swamp you didn't drain is breeding a million more and the potential victims you didn't inoculate are being set up as new targets. If you want a more complete and sustainable (there's that word again) solution, you must tackle all three sides. That means tackling the root causes of the problem, not just the symptoms.

Take burglary for instance. The police can arrest as many burglars as you like but burglary won't go away. That's because there will always be a steady stream of motivated offenders (cause) ready to fill any 'job vacancy' created by the arrests. Meanwhile, if the victims (effect) continue to act in much the same way as they always have and the location (space-time) remains unchanged, the offender's job is made that much easier. They have a template to work from - all of the previous successful burglaries in that area. Therefore, the best way to tackle burglary is to adopt a three-pronged problem solving approach:

• Cause - We work on catching the bad guy. Of course we do. But we also try to identify what makes someone become an offender in the first place and try to divert potential burglars away from the swag bag (often in partnership with youth groups and other agencies). We also work with convicted offenders to try to stop them re-offending.

• Effect - We work in partnership with the householders to make them less likely to be victims in the future. This means education. We offer crime prevention advice (close your windows!) and reassurance (visits, setting up Neighbourhood Watch schemes etc.). We ask people to take certain small actions that will make their property less attractive, such as not leaving highly desirable objects in plain view - you wouldn't leave your iPad on a car seat so don't leave it visible on your coffee table.
 
• Space-Time - We encourage people to take some degree of control of their personal protection by modifying the location (alarms, security lights, gravel paths, window locks etc.). We show them how to secure a home without creating a fortress or instilling a siege mentality.

Sometimes, however, the obvious solutions don't work and, despite our best efforts, the problem persists. Sometimes this can be due to a wholly random factor that we cannot predict or change. Homicide is a good example of this. While some are predictable, the vast majority are spur of the moment and therefore completely unpredictable. So we have to be more creative in our approach. At QEDCon I mentioned something called The Impact Scale (ii) and showed this slide:

If you can eradicate the problem - great. But it will be a very rare instance that you do. If you can reduce how often it happens, that's great too. But it doesn't necessarily help anyone for whom the problem is still very real. So, can you reduce the impact it has on them by limiting the severity? Graffiti is endemic and a nuisance but mostly harmless. However, when it is abusive, or singles out individual persons or groups, it can cause fear and distress. So you reduce the severity by tackling that graffiti first. However, if, like homicide, it's not always possible to prevent a problem from happening then get better at dealing with it. Have well-rehearsed contingency plans. Educate people. By all means, bring in knife control measures and keep the pressure on gang members to stop stabbing each other. But why not also teach them some first aid skills? It means that if the worst case scenario occurs, a life might be saved by handling the incident better. The final option of 'pass to a more suitable agent' isn't admitting defeat; it's simply acknowledging that some agencies or individuals may be in a better position to lead on tackling the problem. They may have specific knowledge, better resources, better training, different but more useful legal powers. And you can still work with them of course.

If you had a park nearby but were afraid to use it because aggressive drunks go there every afternoon and then fall asleep on the park benches ... what would you do? You've tried traditional methods like asking them to go or calling the police. But these people are locked into a lifestyle they find impossible to break free from, and they are often so drunk that any attempt at communication is fruitless.

 It would be easy to take the one-sided triangle approach and keep on arresting the drunks or chasing them away. But, as I said, that won't provide any degree of permanency. You just create a vacancy for other drunks. Or we could take an equally one-dimensional approach and simply remove the benches. But that punishes everybody. Where will the pensioners sit? Or the young parents? And aren't some benches wearing memorial plaques? The donors' families won't like that.

So how about a solution that looks at all three sides of the triangle instead? How about firstly changing the design of the benches?

This doesn't disadvantage the lawful park users (victims) and the visual effect on the location in minimal. A lot of people probably wouldn't even notice the substitution. But the drunks will. Oh yes. Now they can't sleep on the benches any more and there's a good chance that they'll move on elsewhere.

But solving a problem is a very different thing to pushing it elsewhere. And just changing the environment is only changing one side of the triangle. If we think of these people - the offenders - as the victims too, then maybe we can work in partnership (I warned you about that word) with families, outreach workers, social services etc. to offer these unfortunates a way off of the Hellish merry-go-round that is their life. That's a complete solution. That's problem solving done properly.

So that's a very quick guide to the kind of work I did with just a few examples. The important things to take away are:

• Research the underlying causes of a problem - you have to understand why it happens, why it happens where it does, when it does, why people cause the problem and why certain people/objects become the targets.

• Identify the biggest and most solid pillars that support the problem continuing. Once you've done that you can design ways to knock those pillars down. Occasionally those methods are unorthodox, unusual, creative or unlikely ... but if they work and they're legal and they harm no one - do it! Remember, if everything else has been tried and failed, there are only the unorthodox, unusual, creative or unlikely things left to try.

• Go for the maximum impact ... but set realistic goals. You may not be able to eliminate the problem and if that's the target you set, you'll continuously fail. And consider, right at the start, how you're going to measure your success. If you can't prove that you've made a difference, you're going to have problems convincing people to try your ideas in the future.

I've barely scratched the surface here but, hopefully, it's given you a base upon which to build. I'm always contactable of course and I'm always up for coming to you to give talks.

And maybe I should get on and finally write that book ...

(i) This 'problem analysis triangle' was distilled out of the work of professors Marcus Felson and Lawrence E Cohen who developed Routine Activity Theory. When examining crime specifically, we would change the headings to Victim, Offender and Location ... but the same rules apply.
(ii) Developed by Professor John E Eck in his 1987 paper Problem-Solving: Problem-Oriented Policing in Newport News.

My appearance on the Nick Coffer Show

If you missed my appearance on Nick Coffer's Show on BBC Three Counties Radio yesterday, here it is with the music and idents and news edited out. I realise those were the best bits so, sorry, you're stuck with just me and Nick wittering on. We discuss my life as a chef, a cop, an artist and writer. And we consider a creepy spider theme park, how to downsize your life and dancing on stage with Shane McGowan. Approximately 30 mins.

My interview with The Guardian

A week or so ago I did a long, rambling but thoroughly enjoyable podcasty interview with The Guardian's Lay Science chap M J Robbins. It was recorded in a pub. There is beer. That's how all interviews should be surely? Anyway, it'll give you an insight into some of the weird and wonderful work I did with the Problem Solving Unit at New Scotland Yard.

And there may be just the tiniest of plugs for my new book too.

Here's the link.

The 2012 Ig Nobel Prizes UK Tour - London

As you may have read in this previous blogpost, on 9th March 2012 I took part in the Ig Nobel Prizes Uk Tour by speaking at Imperial College in the 800-seater Great Hall of the Sherfield Building. The event was completely sold out. The speakers included Oxford University mathematician Dr Mason Porter discussing his paper on synchronisation in cows, Ig Nobel winner Mirjam Tuk on her paper that explores improved decision-making when you have a full bladder, New Scientist magazine's John Hoyland with some extracts from its ever-excellent Feedback pages, and myself talking about how police officers once used a form of cryptic hide-and-seek during the 'dead' hours on night duty (between 3am and 5am) as a memory aid to learning the fastest routes to various locations. As a bonus we had Professor Andrew George from Imperial reading some terrible poetry by William Topaz McGonagall. A tremendously fun evening hosted brilliantly by Marc Abrahams, founder of the Ig Nobels and the Annals of Improbable Research. And now you can see it (I'm on at 48 minutes in).

The Wizard of Waltham Forest ... in a pub in Camden

The Wizard of Waltham Forest and Other Unlikely Stories from Stevyn Colgan on Vimeo.

My talk from 20th February at the Monarch, Camden, for Skeptics in the Pub. Critical thinking and smarter ways to tackle crime and disorder. Audio recorded by James O'Malley of The Pod Delusion. Slides by me.

Running time: Approx. 45 mins.

One to Fifty

As many of you know, I turned 50 this year. I was looking back through my family photos yesterday trying to find something when I realised that I have at least one picture of me for every decade I've passed. So I've put them all together to show how how I've changed even though it's quite scary to see the damage that nature has wrought! So here's me right at the start in 1961. Everything seemed very simple then. Mum knitted everything I wore.

It's now 1971 and here I am aged aged 10. I was at school in Penzance, Cornwall, at this time and had dreams of being either a marine biologist or an astronaut. I'd just watched the Moon landings and Jacques Cousteau's TV shows were my very favourite thing. Well, that and Doctor Who. I had a mean pout I notice:

By 20 I'd had the idealism kicked out of me by doing rubbish at my O Levels and A Levels. I'd changed ambitions and now wanted to be involved in the arts. I painted and drew, I was in a band and I wrote all the time. But I also realised that I had almost no chance of making any money from it. so I joined the police as the result of a bet with my homicide detective dad. When this photo was taken, I'd a;ready been a cop for two years and was just about to be plunged into several years of riots and violence in London, Greenham Common and the Miners' Strike.

By 30 I had a wife and two young kids. And very dodgy 1980s specs. An eyesight test revealed that I needed them. I wore them for nearly 20 years. My dad died this year at the ridiculously young age of 51. I developed my now legendary bad taste in clothing.

By 40 I'd been in an office job at Hendon Police College for a while, had got divorced, my hair was turning grey and I got fat. Really fat. I peaked at 21 stones. It wasn't the happiest of decades. Fashion sense still terrible.

At 50 I'm now slimmer (though still overweight) and am no longer a policeman, having done my 30 years. I'm finally fulfilling my arty potential by writing books and creating art and music. The specs have gone too - I went for laser eye surgery and discovered that I only need them for reading; I'd been wearing glasses for two decades when I didn't need to. I've been through a lot but I've done a lot too. and I'm generally a pretty happy chap.

I wonder how I'll look in another 10 years?

365 Doodles - Day 295

A last few illustrations today from my 30 years of doodling stuff within the police service. Click on each to see a larger version.

365 Doodles - Day 294

Continuing yesterday's Police theme, here are some more cartoons I did during my 30 years for various magazines, publications and manuals. Click on the pictures to see larger versions (and to read text and captions).

This one was written by my colleague and good friend Chris Hale and published in the Metropolitan Police's in-house paper The Job. Over the years I did quite a lot for them.

I worked for a time as an IT trainer teaching cops how to use the Police National Computer (PNC - the database of all vehicles and people with criminal records, wanted, missing or disqualified from driving). Consequently I worked a lot with the Stolen Vehicle Squad and their magazine The Chalk Farm Ringer (above). I also taught the use of the Met's Computer Aided Despatch (CAD) system on which all calls to police were recorded and officers were assigned. It seemed to me at the time that we weren't always getting the best staff ...

The 'IDI' you'll see on some cartoons was the nom de plume I adopted after I dropped 'Stig'. These days I just sign as 'Colgan'. A lot easier.

Apologies for the quality of some of these. They were mostly drawn before the regular use of such new-fangled things as PCs, scanners etc. They are reproduced from old photocopies.

365 Doodles - Day 293

A long time ago ... well, a couple of years ago anyway ... I worked as a cop. My hair was shorter, my beard was tidier and I had wages. I enjoyed being a cop although I wasn't actually very good at the catching the bad guy thing. But I was good at other stuff and had a very successful career first as a trainer, then as a training designer and then as part of a curious little Scotland Yard department that used innovative new techniques to tackle crime and community issues. It was great fun. Challenging work, but very rewarding.

Because I was involved in writing training courses and manuals for some very heavy subjects, including law and police procedure, I tried to lighten them a little with some illustrations. Today's crop of doodles are just some of the illustrations I ended up doing for various manuals and Powerpoint slides.

Oh, and in case you're wondering about the 'Stig' signature, that was my nickname for years and years and I used it for all of my cartoons. Sadly, the appearance of a chap in a white crash helmet on the BBC TV series Top Gear meant that I had to drop it.