Have I got a deal for you...

If you aren't at least in your mid-30s and from the UK or one of her Colonies, you probably have no idea who Arthur Daley (aka 'Arfur') is.

He is, or was, the lovably roguish but eternally dodgy wheeler and dealer in the UK TV series 'Minder', from 1979-1994.

Sadly, the archetype is not just a stereotype.

Meet our own very real-life  Arthur Daley, Mr. Patton. Not his real name.

The Art of Interviewing

They're just questions, Leon. In answer to your query, they're written down for me. It's a test designed to provoke an emotional response.

Investigative interviews.

It's one of those areas that I actually quite enjoy; sitting down in front of a POI (Person of Interest), whether Witness or Suspect, and engaging with them verbally to obtain their account of events and, in some cases, obtain explanations for any discrepancies in accounts.

It's not rocket science but there is an art to it.

It's not Begging if you have a Corporate Sponsor

Seriously, I have had better days! However, today not being one of them, I managed to drop my BlackBerry and, for the second time, fractured the reactive touchscreen. While the LCD itself is fine, the cracks are noticeable and also I get that horrible 'raspy' feeling when typing onscreen as my skin moves over the broken glass.

Bah!

I'm not going to bother sending it in to be fixed as, last time, it took a couple of months and it came back odd with bits of black plastic sticking out and generally just not feeling 'right'.

I need a new phone.

Free Lunch?

Sometimes, Dear Reader, I wonder whether I am particularly 'special' when it comes to the quality of my prospective clients, or if my experience is typical... not just that for other PIs but also for other self-employed types out there...?

I've blogged about them before; the timewasters or tyrekickers, who I never get any work (or money) from after exhaustive emails, phone conversations, and/or personal meetings; and the tinfoil helmet brigade, who I could never take payment from anyway.

Because they are barking mad.

What I don't get, at the other extreme, is the sort of client like Kelly Rutherford although, since she reputedly doesn't pay her bills, it's probably just as well. Having said that, Banach did receive around $28,000 from her - which is about 4 times the amount I billed my single most spendy client for a case.