Not much changes in 70 years does it?
I was going to save this until the Orwell Prize results were out but I can’t see much point waiting.
The last 13 months or so of blogging have been a lot of fun. It is still fun but I have now written down everything that I think is worth me writing. In some areas I am conscious that I am starting to repeat myself. If I keep on going I believe that I will end up spending the next year or so attack blogging the government rather than blogging about policing. I don’t want to be all about that. There are plenty of other people doing that better already.
Now as far as I know, I haven’t been outed at work and nobody has asked me to wind my neck in. This is just how I feel about the blog and it is a feeling that has been growing for a while. It’s time for me to do something else with my writing.
I don’t know if blogging changes anything. I do know that I am just a short lever in this world but it was worth a go on the off chance that there were people reading that could deploy longer levers. I’m probably going to write a book now. It won’t be another searing expose from the trenches, it will be a work of fiction. I don’t have a book deal, never wanted one. If you want to read a book on how it is buy Gadget, Bloggs or Copperfield.
Thanks for reading.
This blog will not self destruct in about a month or so. People have asked so I’ve left it up with comments locked down. Last word went to Big Fat Trucker. Take care all.
The e-mail still works. Keep in touch.
Bye
Jack Night
Mu Mu! Mu Mu! Bring out the JAMs!
All the very best NJ, I haven’t agreed with everything you’ve said, but it’s always been a good read.
I understand your decision to knock it on the head though. It’s better to go out on a high than fade away…
It would be an awful waste to bin the archives though, can’t you leave the blog up so people can still read historically?
Peace, brother.
PS. What has caused the snap decision though, especially after redesigning the layout etc? Promoted and posted?
NOOOOOOOO!!!! Come on NJ, you can’t do this to us! I’d put this blog in the top three police blogs I’ve found – maybe in the top two (and conceivably the best).
We need your regular injections of real life to counteract The Bill and what’s left in the memory of Dixon. (I’m not a bobby.)
Please reconsider. Please, please, pretty please with knobs on and chocolate sprinkles.
Thanks for the great reads!! Its been brilliant reading your insight into todays policing, especially from someone who should be joining up soon. .. As hibbo said, Kepp it open! finish with an article that helps a newcomer read around the site!
Great Work
Have no regrets because it is over, smile because it happened.
Now that is a crying shame. I’ve always enjoyed what you’ve written…I was there earlier and got an original T-shirt.
Whatever, it’s your choice but I for one will miss it.
NJ,
Whilst appreciating your reasons, like others I take great sadness on hearing your news.
Whilst your insight into the police was interesting, informative and entertaining; so were your comments on political subjects.
Blogging is not a waste of time, it does bring results even if they are not as quick as you seem to wish.
Please do reconsider, even if it meant for example a monthly post.
Take care and I wish you luck in whatever you decide to do.
NJ, Hope you’ll change your mind, but regardless thanks for the writing. It has been fascinating reading. I’m probably on the far left of your readership politically, my major objections to this govt. being it is as bad as the tories. Spoilt ballot next time for me. Even so, most of your criticisms of this bunch of charlatans I’d agree with.
On the policing side you showed a world that I didn’t believe existed. I’ve had a very low opinion of the police since they were that woman’s brown-shirts about a quarter of a century ago. You’ve changed my opinion of rank and file officers substantially (although perhaps there are still far too many vichy cops).
Good luck and keep safe with whatever you do.
I’m an anonymous lurker who didn’t stir myself to contribute to your comments in time, but could I just ask you to leave the archives up? Yours is the best policing blog I have come across.
Good luck with the fiction venture. Have you considered a non-fiction version of your experiences? As a Guardian reader I think that paper would benefit from a column detailing what the police actually have to deal with day to day.
Thank you for the Blog. Please do not turn your back on it forever, you may really want to get something off your chest. Good Luck in the future.
PS. At least let us know how you get on with the Orwell Prize.
NJ,
I’m just glad that I know you outside of blogosphere……I’ll take your identity to the grave. I think you’re more influential to others than you’ll ever realise. YOU ARE A VALUED FRIEND and there’s only a handful of people within the organisation who I will say that about (it’s not just brownie points if you do end up as a supervisor, wink, wink!!!)
Also to the folks who regularly post here, I value you all….
Hibbo- stay cynical, Cops need critics.
Guernican- stay liberal, Chavs need friends.
Westcountry JP- stay focused, I still have faith in the CJS (just)
Melvin T Gray-stay wise, us young bucks need reigning in from time to time.
Merlin and Binary Surfer-Stay on my wavelength, I do need backup from time to time.
It’s been informative and emotional,
A tearful MUCH LOVE,
PRC XXX
I’ve been reading you all along and have really enjoyed your blog. All the best for the future.
You’ll be sorely missed.
All the best with the book.
I was “in” at the begining (ish) too. It’s almost always been a really good, thought provoking, head shaking read. Good luck, buddy.
I’m really gutted at this news. I can see that it must be difficult to keep things vague enough to protect your anonymity but I really will miss your contribution. Think again, my friend, think again – there are few enough shafts of light breaking up the darkness.
Unless we are lucky, so very lucky, we are entering a period of barbarism we thought impossible. You have a rare combination of the opportunity to observe, the sense to gauge accurately WHAT you have observed and the powers of articulation required to make it known. You are a rare beast. Do not deny us your wisdom.
But all the best singers find they can’t can’t retire. I predict that sometime, some place, there will be a comeback tour.
In the meantime thanks for writing.
I suppose the longer you keep going the bigger the chance of being outed.Will miss your blog.Many of us need the comfort of knowing someone else thinks as we do and is articulate enough to write about it.Also that not all police are us vs them .
Big hugz and thanks.
Has it only been 13 months? Already your blog has become a fixture of my daily literary intake.
Well, you’d better let us know if the book ever becomes available for general purchasing. I don’t mind if it’s general fiction, though when I try to imagine what it would be like I keep coming back to Philip K Dick.
I’ll tune in to the blog periodically.
In the meantime goodbye and goodluck!
I’ll miss it mate.
Best wishes and thanks.
Plodosphere – officer down!
There is very little new under the sun. You are of the opinion that you have “said it all” once. However there is more than one way to tell the truth, skin a cat or indeed awaken a MOP.
Richard North at http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/ has produced hundreds of posts and several books based on a fairly small nucleus of topics, perhaps you could ask him how he keeps it up with such vigour?
In my experience, many people are educated by a process of osmosis rather than logical argument and therefore benefit from repetition, so play it again Sam!
However if you are no longer going to run your own blog, I would encourage you to contribute to others. Fjordman made this change sometime ago and hence continues to permeate the wider blogosphere.
Perhaps a rest will put some lead in your truncheon!
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo don’t leave us!
I would like to echo the other commenters when they say that you should leave it up even if you only post once in a blue moon. You might come to regret a complete deletion.
Either way, thank you for writing. Each word is worth its weight in gold.
Never commented but always enjoyed reading. A great blog and good luck with the book.
Night Jack; sweet dreams, keep on writing and stay safe.
Best of luck Jack. You’re a fantastic writer and I look forward to your first novel.
NJ
You write too well to bin it – I’d read anything you post, on any subject. Please keep the site up on lockdown and keep chipping away when the need arises. Good luck with book and thanks for everything.
[...] if today wasn’t enough, it turns out that the indispensable Nightjack is retiring from the [...]
Always worth reading… good luck with the novel.
Damn, I’ll miss reading your always interesting (and cogent) posts Jack, even if I didn’t always agree with what you had to say.
please do consider leaving the archives up though…
all the best chap.
Agree with Blue Eyes, it doesn’t hurt to leave this dormant, just in case.
You’ll be missed, very much so. But all the best, and I’ll certainly buy your book!
Aww, bloody hell, NJ. Please re-consider. There’ll be an awful lot of folk missing your insights and the intelligent debate that follows them.
Agree ; it would be a shame if your writings disappeared – even if you never wrote anything else. Good luck with the book.
FWIW I don’t think you repeat anything (except “joke sentence of the week”)
If you have to stop for other reasons, that’s sad, but not surprising/
Like many NJ i will mourn the passing of your blog as it’s become one of my favourites on the daily blog read.
Being objective about it – i applaud the decision to stop when you felt your material was becoming repetitive(though i personally don’t believe it was). It’s widely considered the mark of a good author – so that bodes well for your writing!
I am realistic enough to recognise that you are right in some ways – the world isn’t going to change overnight and if you’ve said your piece you can only hope someone was listening.
I’d be interested to get a heads up when your book comes out even if it is unrelated fiction, because simply put i like your writing style. You have my e-mail if this is possible!
Best of luck in whatever you do, look after yourself and keep doing the job as best as you can in the current climate.
Regular Commenters: For better or worse it was good debating NJ’s points and posts with you, i’m lurking as usual around a number of other blogs so i doubt this will be goodbye!
Just to echo what Binary said – I, too, will be around – probably mainly on Gadget’s. Hope to bump into regular commenters – PRC, Hibbo et al – elsewhere in the blogosphere.
Look forward to reading the book, Mr Jack.
NJ
I understand your point that few of the bad things you document change much despite all the coverage that you and other like-minded bloggers devote to them. It is therefore easy to see why you feel that you run the risk of becoming repetitive when society replays the same appalling scenarios over and over again.
However, people like you are very often the only way that people like me – a mere law-abiding citizen taxpayer – can truly learn what is going on at the coal face of the public sector services for which we pay (or more accurately are “docked”) increasing amounts but are given increasingly worse performance.
I earnestly hope that you will reconsider and keep the blog alive even if that means you writing less often in order to avoid the risk of repeating yourself.
Thanks for all your efforts to date – both on the blog and on the job – and I do hope you’ll be around the www for a while yet.
Best of luck with your new direction. I’ve really enjoyed reading your blog and thank you for the contributions you have made to my own site.
All the best for the future and take care of yourself.
Louise x
Thanks for your blog. Like others I have become a regular reader and I will miss it. I have appreciated your insights into our “criminal justice” system and the reminder that there are some ordinary people who are police officers.
Can it only be coincidence that you choose to retire just as HMG start recording all our internet habits…
UL
You’ll certainly be going out on a high, NJ. I remember when I first discovered your blog – It was like discovering a little gem.
We had some great debates old bean! I love your writing style and will certainly miss it. I’ll also miss your original content, too.
I know how you feel with regards to “attack blogging the government” – It’s something that job blogger resort to all too often, it’s also something I try to avoid, but it’s commonly something one resorts to when you start to run of material.
Take care and I hope things work out for you.
PC Plastic Fuzz – AKA PCSO Bloggs.
Your footprint remains.
All the best NJ.
PCMP
A damn shame.
I link to your blog on my blogroll and have linked here in several of my own posts. I even said this once
I’m fully aware that I am not even the blogger equivalent of a busker let alone a rock star, I don’t even use my real name! It’s Paul Gadd by the way. Nightjack left a comment here once which I described to Mr SBD as a feeling akin to having Noel Gallagher come to your gig at the Dog & Duck and say “Not bad lads.”.
And I bloody meant it.
Leave the archive up because there are some very good and disturbingly necessary posts that I would be sad to see go.
All the best.
Thank you N.J. for your insight and humour. All the best.
Oh noooooooo!! NJ, I can understand your reasons completely, am glad it isn’t because you haven’t been found out or anything horrible like that. So long and thanks for all the posts!
Frank
This post has made me truly, deeply sad. Yours is the best blog I’ve ever read, combining the reflective wisdom of The Magistrate’s Blog, the common sense and simple sense of justice of the other police bloggers, and a calm, balanced writing style that is one of the best I have seen. I wish you well; you have my admiration (and from the comments above, that of many others here).
Well it’s a shame, but thanks – i’ve enjoyed reading. Good luck.
OMG, no.
You can’t do this!!
I have so enjoyed reading your blog, I don’t always make a comment because sometimes it goes over my head when you talk about your work issues.
I, like many, have so enjoyed your blogs.
Thankyou again.
[...] position, for he spends much time there, and from whom we learned first I think about Nightjack. Nightjack states that he now has said everything he thinks he ought to, and has other plans, such as a book which is fair enough – he [...]
Always well written, always highly entertaining; and always best to leave them wanting more…
Good luck with the book.
Oh man, I will miss you. You were one of the first CopBloggs I found. It is the likes of you that gave me the balls to start my own Blogg. It wasn’t just what you wrote, but how you wrote it. No matter what your subject was, the writing was always lush.
I, for one, will miss you NightJack.
Mummy x
p.s. I, myself am not sure if Blogging changes anything, I just view it as somewhere to let of steam, it stops you from boring your friends and family with your rantings and gives you an outlet for your anger. I hope in the months to come, I will see you back in the Blogosphere, having a good old rage, but may be not tied down by your job description. I will miss you.
Mate, what can be said that already hasn’t been? Don’t close it down (except for copyright reasons) and hope that whatever you decide to do you can “live long and prosper”. Sound like a whopper saying that I know. You and the other police “blogstars” are one of the reasons that I started my effort.
Hope you haven’t been outed and all goes well whatever you decide to do.
Regards.
Keep the blog up, and post when the spirit moves you. Especially when the exam result comes in.
Meantime, very many thanks. This is a particularly well-written, even literary place.
I add my voice to the multitudes.
For selfish reasons I’m sad to see you call it a day. You’re the first bookmark that I go to each day. The quality of your analysis, your writing – and the humanity and personality that shines through it – makes reading a pleasure. If sometimes an uncomfortable one.
Police blogging will be poorer for your silence though. Even when you’re ‘attack blogging’ you manage to do so without the dog whistles I hear so often elsewhere.
But if you want to go out on a ‘Strangeways, Here We Come” rather than a “Cut The Crap” fair enough.
Then again, I still live in hope of a third series of Spaced.
ACS
Sorry to read that you are buggering off, Nightjack; you write well. And yet it is so, innit, this weblogging business, a nice way to allow the underfolk to blow off steam, is in so many ways merely the cybersex sigh of the oppressed; and, a whole lot of often well-done digital opium.
Shame. Enjoyed the quality of the writing and the reflection rather than knee-jerk reflexes of pure attack. The analysis was often operational rather than tactical, something rarely embraced by other commentators.
Your thoughts and skill will be missed. Good luck with the Orwell.
I’ve read your blog for ages NJ and I’ll be sorry to see it end. All the best wishes for the future to you. Stay lucky.
Bugger! Please reconsider. Yours is a top blog; very insightful & interesting too. I shall miss it/you.
I think you should keep writing, even if it isnt on policing. You should also consider writing for magazines – the skill of your prose and the emotional engagement on difficult subjects is something that is rare and is something I associate with the best writing in the likes of the New Yorker (you should read the article on solitary confinement in the April 6th issue – fascinating) or the Spectator, I prefer the former to the latter. It’s a gift and one that I think should be shared with a wider audience.
Sorry to hear we’re losing you, NJ, one of the best cop blogs still going. You’ve told Joe Public how it really is doing what we do, & I’ll always be grateful for that. Cheers mate & stay safe.
I came to your blog relatively late and have really, really enjoyed it. You write well – good luck with the novel and I shall miss your work. Always thoughtful, sometimes sad, always relevant. All the best.
I haven’t posted anything on here for a while but I’ve been reading each one as it has come out and we’re definitely on the same wavelength. Good luck with everything, enjoy the good shit, and leave the bad shit at work to be dealt with another day.
Sad news NJ. Wish you all the best. WEB.
Make sure you let everyone know when the novel is coming out, i’ll certainly buy it.
I’m sorry you’re going Nightjack, but better on a high than a fizzle, and FAR better than what happened to Belfast Peeler, or nearly happened to Gadget.
Good luck with the writing, and if it produces “fuck you” money, unmask and nail the bastards under your IRL.
I do a job where the police are regarded as a embuggerance, but having read you, Gadget and Ellie, I have far more sympathy for the pressure you get from both sides.
Yours,
A MOP.
[...] this is the traditional point at which to say “Long may he flourish” but he has, sadly, packed it in. So I’ll have to instead say that I hope others continue to follow in his blogsteps (and [...]
Congratulations. I’d not come across this blog on my web travels, but I’ll certainly be tuning in from now on. Great idea, and great writing.