European sirens − 22 August, 2006
The Radisson in Odense is just a block or so away from the police station. Since there is no apparent concept of air conditioning in a country that is the latitudinal equivalent of northern Manitoba (if it had some sea ports), I have the window open wide. And so I can hear the city streets as I type.
Just now, one of those European sirens (”eeeeee-aaaaaaa, eeeeee-aaaaaa”) broke the relative quiet. As I had flashbacks to watching Peter Sellers get toted away in “A Shot in the Dark“, I wondered if crime and the citizen’s sense of it might change if American police dumped their own siren calls (”rrrooooooooooooowwrr-rrrooooooooooooowwwrr”) and went to something Inspector Clouseau might hear. I don’t know if there is anything to it more than me being up late in a foreign country for the first time, but it was almost a comforting sound.
