Shake My Hand!

Today a scrawny drug user was so grateful to me for taking down a record of his confession that he offered a sweaty palm for me to shake. Unfortunately it is against my religious beliefs to contract Hepatitis, so I declined, mumbling a made-up tale of an infested house I had visited earlier.

There are other categories of hand I will not shake...

• Blood-stained ones.
• Filthy ones.
• Ones soaked in an unidentifiable substance.
• Mad people's.
• Drunk people's.
• Stoned people's.
• Those of people who fought me earlier and now want to apologise.
• Those of people who have a history of snapping police officer's hands off.
• Those of people who have a history of alleging that police officers have tried to snap their hands off/sexually assaulted them.
  
• Limp ones.
• Sweaty ones.
• Those of people whose houses I am about to search/have just searched.
  

... and circumstances in which I will not shake a hand:

• During a fight (you know, when some passing drunk thinks you want to say hello whilst restraining another passing drunk).
• Following a fight.
• Following a foot-chase.
• Just prior to a fight or foot-chase.
• After searching a house/person.
• When tired.
• When cold.
  
• When about to arrest someone.
• When about to arrest someone's child.
• On releasing someone from custody who has been there for drugs/sex/alcohol/urination/assault/abusive language.
  

I am surprised that Sir Ian Blair is so aggrieved by a PC not wishing to shake his hand this week. Did he ask himself if it was for any of the above reasons? Surely he must be used to people not liking him.

The real issue is whether this officer is willing to go hands-on with people she has to, not her self-important chief.

As seen below, not everyone is in the mood for handshaking even when they have to:















Handshakes have always been controversial.
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