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I commited a crime yesterday. I impersonated a policeman. But it was in a good cause.

A cyclist in front of me threw a bunch of tissues on the pavement. I hailed him down.
"What do you think you're doing?"
"Eh?"
The tissues! You may as well be grenading the street!" (cont)

He stared at me. I stared back. With all the authority one can muster while wearing leggings, a cycle helmet and a gaily coloured face mask.

"I don't speak English," he said. In English.

"The tissues," I said, more loudly, to help him understand. "You dropped them. Not good."

"Ah. I see. Tissues. Yes. They must have fallen out of my pocket when I was getting my phone out."

"So what are you going to do now?" I said. Glossing over the fact he was trying to make a  phone call while cycling.

"Nothing?" He shrugged.

And then it happened.

"I will ARREST YOU if you don't pick up those tissues!!" I said.

He stared.

"Yes!! I will ARREST you!! Please go back and pick them up!!"

God knows what I'd have said if he'd asked to see my badge. I, er, left it at home?

But then the miracle happened.

He shrugged again, then cycled back across the road, and picked them up.

I gave him a cheery thumbs up and an enthusiastic wave from the other side of the street.

"Thank you!" I shouted. While a whole family sitting on a nearby bench, illegally possibly, looked curiously up.

"That naughty man," I said. "Dropped his tissues. I was asking him to pick them up."

The family stared at me.

"I would have arrested him otherwise," I said.

They stared some more. They hadn't even witnessed the encounter.

"Right, well, I'll be off then," I said. "Litterbugs to catch."

And made good my exit, whistling, once more pounding my hard-bitten beat.

Another crime tackled on the mean streets of SW3.