Oh Boy

When watching any of the British police procedurals that I'm so found of—being a BritBox subscriber—I always keep a pad of paper and pen handy to write down their acronyms and expressions that I don't initially recognize. After all, we share a common language separated by an ocean.

DAC-Deputy Assistant Commissioner
ANPR-Automated Number Plate Recognition
NCS- National Crime Squad
NFA- No Further Action
PCSO-Police Community Support Officer
FLO-Family Liaison Officer
ASBO-Anti Social Behavior Order

There's more, but that's just what I've looked up in the past few weeks.

There's a miniseries called River about a very senior detective John River, played to perfection by the Swedish actor Stellen Skarsgård, who witnessed his partner, Detective Sergeant Jackie Stevenson played by Nicola Walker, get shot down and killed in the middle of the street by a passing motorist.

'Unforgotten' is another cop show starring Nicola Walker where she meets her end in the last episode. Who's her agent? The difference in 'River' is that we learn of her death through a flashback in the first episode. D.I. John River however keeps seeing her and talking to her throughout the six episodes. He sees other people who he converses with, leaving colleagues and bystanders giving him a wide berth.

Of course John gets referred for counseling since he's witnessed a traumatic event. Rosa the therapist asks if he sees ghosts. "No, I see manifestations" replies River. Okay. Nicola Walker keeps appearing thought out the series as they work to find who killed her and why.

It's obvious there's a simmering unblossomed affection between John and his deceased partner. He sees and hears other people and talks to them, notably, Thomas Cream, the notorious Poisoner of Lambeth, a late 19th-century Canadian-Scottish doctor who was a serially poisoner, about whom John is reading. John sees and hears Cream trying to convince John that living isn't worth it.

But it is his murdered partner Detective Sergeant Jackie Stevenson, "Stevie", whose manifestations River encounters the most.

It's a sensitive series about a troubled, lonely detective and a mystery as to who killed Stevie. Once you get past the manifestations as a plot device the series is enjoyable.

At one point Stevie's "ghost" teases John that he's part of that tribe of window lickers. He grins a bit at being made of. But what's a window licker? It's got to be one of those British phrases that didn't cross the Atlantic. Or, if it did, I wasn't familiar with it.

I offer Google's definition:

Noun. Window licker (plural window lickers) (British slang, offensive) A mentally handicapped person.

And what is the origin of the phrase?

Derogatory term for a mentally handicapped person. Derives from the stereotype of handicapped children on a school bus licking the windows.

River is a new series, not renewed past the first season. Wow, the British Woke police let that one slip by.

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