Yes, yes, yes...! Well, actually, no.

With the long history of private investigators in print, movies and TV, you think it would be pretty hard to find someone who didn't really have some kind of idea of what we actually do, right?

Well, turns out there are still some people without a clue.

Figuratively and quite literally. 

The following is an actual* email from one such individual...

5 'must-have' items to keep in your car

Well, Dear Reader, I thought I would post some quick recommendations as to what handy items I routinely keep in my vehicle for those 'just in case' moments.

And since everyone loves lists, here are my Top 5.

No candy though!

Review: Carswell Triform Private Security Evidence Notebook

Notebook rear

Well, I have to say that the Canadians were pretty quick in sending me my order - it arrived in a matter of days. No doubt helped by the rather steep shipping costs.

Oh well.

Anyway, now that I've had a chance to put one to the use, what are my thoughts?

Investigative Interviewing: The Anonymous PI Method Part Three - After The Interview

As promised, Dear Reader, here is the final chapter on Investigative Interviewing practices as generally performed by me. If you have just found this post, you can read the preceding parts one and two.  This post is, thankfully, a bit shorter.

So you've completed the initial interview. Now what?

Tools for burning date/time to video footage

So, Dear Reader, yesterday I mentioned the recent purchase of the Panasonic HC-V250 camcorder I picked up for a surveillance job and you might recall one of my gripes was the lack of being able to stamp the date and time directly onto the footage.

Well, luckily for me, and possibly you, there are a number of options out there for nifty tools to do this, post-shooting. Yeah, I know, technically this is altering the original video (except that it isn't as the original footage isn't changed) and you should be supplying your Client with the original SD card as well as the DVD you created anyway.

Here are three such tools...

Quick Review: Panasonic HC-V250 Camcorder

Hello again, Dear Reader. I just thought I would post a quick review of a piece of kit I recently purchased since I've had a few days to play around with various settings and get to grips with functionality etc.

Basically, a job came up where video footage is sought as evidence and, believe it or not, this really is the first time I've actually needed a video camera during surveillance.

Which is a little embarrassing because I didn't have one.

True story!

However, I did some quick internet research as to what was available at the usual large retailers and settled on the Panasonic HC-V250.

And?