Now this is interesting.   I was just talking with my wife, formerly of Bradford on Avon, and she says that she used to go walking in her downtown area at night when she could not sleep.   And it appears the vaunted cherishing of eccentrics in the UK has a definite limit. When she was looking into store windows late at night, she was picked up by the police--and they made it clear it was not for her own safety, but that they thought she might do more than window-shopping.

So it appears the UK is a police state--at least as much as the US.   Who knew?