The word from my Hawke’s Bay colleagues is that mobsters have been stopped with bottles of urine. I’m picking this isn’t due to a lack of public toilets and is much more likely to do with a certain controversial meth treatment programme up that way.

I noted a ruling from a local judge who didn’t have much truck with the scheme or the veracity of the drug testing. I’m not sure the World Anti-Doping Agency would have been too happy if Lance Armstrong’s coach was doing his testing.

Let’s hope the programme is using accredited and independent testers. What’s the beer up that way? Tui – Yeah Right.

A big thanks to all the teams on the checkpoints up north. Long hours on your feet in the cold and rain isn’t much fun, and it looks like this work might drag on for a while.

I hope the teams are getting rotated regularly and it’s been good to see a few cavalry drafted in from other districts.

I had to laugh at the big haul of KFC at one checkpoint, especially the wag who suggested a lot of boot space had been wasted on coleslaw.

This newly announced Tactical Response Model has me scratching my head. I can’t decide whether it is a great move or a Clayton’s approach. More training has to be a good thing, but no amount of training with a firearm helps if you don’t have one. It might work in the bigger centres, but I can’t see it changing much elsewhere.

I had a yarn with a mate from the college recently and it sounds like they are in for a rather big shake-up.

I’d been hearing for a while that things were going bad up there, with experienced trainers being told they were dinosaurs, and theory over practice dominating discussions.

I know a few district supervisors have said there were lots of good people turning up from the college, but with limited practical skills.

Let’s hope that gets sorted because our future starts at the college and the recruits deserve the best training possible.

This column is written by a frontline police member. It does not represent the views or policies of the Police Association.