What would you do?

I'm just home from town, and outside the supermarket, where they often have charity collections, was something a bit different.  A stall from our local police force, asking people to take part in an interactive survey.  People were given £100 in varying denominations (toy money, sadly) and asked to distribute the money between 7 boxes with different priorities on them, to show where you think the police should be spending their/our cash.

Well, I thought to myself, that's easy enough.  Until I started.  The 7 boxes were:

• Tackling Hate Crime (domestic abuse, racial, gender, dis/ability, homophobic abuse)
• Tackling Violent Crime
• Reducing Burglary
• Tackling Drug-related crime
• More visible police/PCSOs on the beat
• Combating Terrorism/Extremist attacks
• Reducing Anti-Social Behaviour

Well. How hard was that?  They're so connected. There was no "reducing speeding", "picking on innocent motorists", "paperwork", or "going for a takeaway" (our village Police Station is 5 doors from a Chinese takeaway & the officers seem to be regular customers).

I really struggled, I mean.  More visible policing will, by its nature, reduce anti-social behaviour. Tackling drug-related crime is likely to show a reduction in burglary & violent crimes.  It's things like this that make me very glad I don't have to make big strategic decision like that.  What would you do?  (argh! I sound like Jodi Picoult!)

© Imabase | Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos

I asked Squeaky what she wanted to spend the money on, and she said "give it to Daddy", but apparently that's not allowed.  Shame, he'd've appreciated it!

Dilemma

I have a million things I want to blog about right now.  Some of them might even be interesting!  However, I don't have a huge supply of brains to write coherent posts with, and the spare braincells I do have are being directed firmly at the issues I want to blog about, rather than blogging about them.

There's one post I desperately want to write while it's relevant, but to be fair, I feel I should approach the company in question for comment prior to publishing.  There's a question.  What would you do?  It's not a review, it's a genuine experience we've recently had with a major company, who many of you may be using in the near future, and a case of not delivering on what they promised and failing to communicate this.  The post is going to be strictly true & accurate, not emotional, but a wee bit angry.  They haven't asked me to write about them, they don't know anything about the blog at present.

But thinking about other media, if this were a magazine, there would be a box at the bottom saying "Xcorp declined to comment".  If it were TV, Esther Rantzen or Lynn Faulds-Wood (I'm old, OK?) would chase the CEO down the street with a camera crew asking why they let their customers down.  Should I, as a blogger, follow the same principles of balanced reporting & right to reply?  Or should I say "My blog, my opinions, like it or lump it"?