London is an odd city for transport. From the Circular main road travelling its border to the inner intricacies of Westminster where any move to change how the road system works is met with total disdain and bitter political infighting.
Cars:
To drive within the city centre of London you have to be nuts and rich, or rich and nuts depending on your mood. Half the Central London streets were designed for horse and cart and have never been improved on, one way systems that seem to go nowhere and then on top of that theres the congestion charge. Congestion Charge? You ask, Well our former Lord Mayor of London in his genius decided one way to stop the traffic and the pollution was to put a daily fee for drivers coming into London proper. So special cameras for licence plate reading have been setup in conjunction with the DVLA and if you dont pay the 8 pounds sterling fee for driving into City Centre you will be charged a whopping 100 pounds as a fine for your naughtiness mate
(For ic purposes if you work in City centre and wish to drive everyday you need at least Resources 3 to do so)
The Alternatives:
London Transport is the umbrella organisation for all bus, train and underground services within the City of London. For travelling around you can buy a return ticket, a travel card day ticket or finally an Oyster card, a special electronic card that keeps a log of your journeys and direct debits your bank account when your credit runs out.
Of the services that London Transport offers the one it considers its pride and joy, even after all these years, is the London Underground. Still the largest underground railway system in the world and still 80% of the time regular as clockwork day and night. However in these modern times some of the trains being used are beginning to look a little worn and threadbare, after all some of these trains have been in service for 30 years or more now. Why haven't they been replaced yet is a question on a lot of the citizens minds after all these years.
The buses sadly do not have the instantly recognisable red double deckers so well known and loved around the world. Since last year when they were finally taken out of service after nearly 40 years puttering down Londons streets. They have moved on to more economical forms of bus and coach to meet their transportion needs in these modern times. As a service the buses do meet their targets and are on time. When there isnt a rush hour to delay everything by two hours, and yeah those days do happen, they happen a lot more actually than they used to.
The British hospital system is the envy of the world. Yeah well if we keep on telling ourselves its true maybe one day it will become true. But sadly at this point the hospital system within Great Britain and London in particular is nowhere near that state of being. 30 years ago it was a marvel. The creation of the National Health Service (NHS for short) making available to all the benefits of the hospital when it was needed. However due to the Tory party and more recently New Labour the best description is up a creek without a paddle.
Yep you will get free medical care, and yes that includes all you Johnny Foreigners out there. But anything long term, like replacement hip surgery, heart transplant and a.n. other operative procedure your gonna be waiting a long time. To get something done at present can take from six months to three years to be done. Which is why sadly private healthcare is making a massive resurgence within the UK at present. Pay a small monthly fee and the worlds best will be there at one of their private hospitals to aid you in your recovery.
Queen Charlottes Hospital
Situated in Hammersmith Queen Charlottes was once a paragon of the NHS service in these more modern times of its 700 beds only 400 are available as they budget to meet the needs of the area around them. Surprisingly though its pre and post natal care is second to none but its primary service nowadays is its Accident and Emergency Department which covers itself and the surrounding twenty mile district after the other 5 hospitals offering the service were closed down. This department is sadly overstretched but somehow still maintains an exemplary level of healthcare to those truly in need.
The Rydal Centre
This is the top private heathcare facility and wonderfully fond of buzz words as you can see from the name facility. Smaller than Queen Charlottes with only 200 beds but it still is able to maintain a much higher standard of service to those who can pay to have their needs large or petty resolved.
Barristers and Solicitors:
Ok you lot out there are most probably wondering how the hell our legal system works. As from the outside it looks like a pigging mess. In the U.S. and other places all you have is Lawyers. Here we have the wonder of solicitors and barristers. Half the time even we don't know the damned difference between the two but it comes down to a surprisingly simple difference. Barristers are the guys in the wigs you see at court in all those movies. While the solicitors are the legal advisors of the system, handling things like the probate of deaths and all other sorts of mundanity.
Crown Prosecution Department:
Its name says it all, these are the people that do the job of prosecuting all those poor bastards that the Met throw their way. In all honesty this is the pit they throw all those idealists that no one else wants. As in London the incidents of cases being thrown out due to police brutality is beginning to rise once again. With corruption on the rise once more as well the moral level of this department is currently sinking without a trace.
The Metropolitan Police/The Met
Yep the template on which most Police Departments the world over are based. That proud institution that has upheld and maintained the Law and is the epitome of civic duty. My Arse it is. The modern Metropolitan Police force is a stagnant engine of dysfunction and brutality in the wonderful world we live in. Recent reports coming out of the civil rights watchdogs believe that it was the Commissioners mismanagement of the opening stages of the incident that led to the sixty deaths and countless injuries suffered. Efforts are being made to resolve the issues. but there is no sign of resolution in the near future.
Criminal Investigation Department:
When crimes go above a certain level the uniformed division passes on up a step into the auspices of what used to be known as CID. This department within the Metropolitan Police is actually covered by two divisions. The Serious Crimes Group which deals with organised crime and large scale crime, and Homicide, which deals with murder of course. It can be stated without a doubt that these two departments are most probably amongst the most corrupt departments in the Metropolitan Police Force. There are currently investigations currently going on within the departments in question. But no one really expects anything to come of it.
CO19:
These are the cops you really do not want coming down on you. The armed response units are the most dreaded people to arrive on a scene where things are tense. Three cops, armed with Glock automatic pistols and HK MP5 submachineguns is sure to ruin your day. These guys are to paraphrase a quote "Mad, bad and dangerous to know", and amazingly the least corrupt department in the city. Currently in the 620 square miles to cover there are 50 of these units patrolling your district at any point in time.
New Scotland Yard:
Almost as legendary as the original Scotland Yard. However nowadays
this is the administrative centre for the Met.
Ok peeps its sad to say that the Brits and the Yanks have very different concepts on guns. For some its hard to understand how the Brits are so different in this area and so anti gun. However, it primarily comes from a couple of factors involving the last forty years of British history. The first being the actions of the Irish terror bomb campaign of the 1970s and early 80s, the actions of the communist groups such as Baader Meinhof, and the Basque separatists and IRAs close ties in the so-called European network of the time.
This lead to the start of a restricted access to firearms in around 1975 and calls for older weapons to be handed over, in the first of many unofficial amnesties to be held over the decades to come. With the only persons actually being allowed to keep firearms were to games wardens and licensed sportsmen. Even so firearms from other countries were remarkably easy to obtain through the old mail order systems and magazines such as Soldier of Fortune and collectors of course did such after all there was no real harm in it was there.
In 1987 that all changed in September of that year. Michael Ryan walked out of his house down the street and with an Ak47 sub machine gun started shooting his way through the town. Killing and injuring 16 people. Ryan in the end was killed in a confrontation with police. However the incident lead to the countrys largest crackdown on firearms in Britain in 15 years. Reinforced and strengthened legislation and the beginning of the instigation of Armed Response Units across the United Kingdom. In the next ten years over 150,000 firearms were recovered and seized and police policy has changed to the point where within six months of the Hungerford Massacre if someone believed a firearm had been spotted it took immediate priority to be investigated. This has involved incidents where if people did not respond to the knock by the police the door was broken down and police had the right to search without a warrant.
By the present day the laws relating to firearms have gotten to the point where even replica weapons, BB gun replicas (which are not classified as toys in the UK) and air rifles are all on the restricted list. To import, stock or try to sell them in the United Kingdom classifies depending on the power of the weapon as a misdemeanour. To actually possess a firearm in the United Kingdom now carries a mandatory two year jail sentence. Actually using a firearm adds another 5 to 10 years to the sentence for the crime.
However the one thing that is not apparent from all this information is that most British citizens welcome these restrictions. firearms to the British on some levels are anathema. Criminal organisations rely on knives if anything in their business or more creative means to enforce their order in the world. The average citizen has most probably only seen a gun in the real world once and thats during any major threat alert at a major travel centre in their local area carried by an armed police unit. The instances however of a firearm being used by the police in one of these incidents has been once in the last ten years.
OOC: For in game purposes this means that to even get the skill Firearms 1 it is amazingly hard, to obtain a firearm is currently nigh impossible and most supernatural groups would frown on one of their kind possessing such a weapon, After all a vampire held in a cell after dawn is such a masquerade breach its scarey. On the influence front you would need at least Street Influence 4 or Underworld 4 to obtain such an item and if your caught your char will be desanctioned as bail is not an option its your mandatory two year sentence.
The following information is copyright of the below and copied
from the www.hmso.gov.uk
The Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) Order
1988
How to describe the British education system. An imaginative
creation capable of diversity and accepting of reasoned thought and
adaptation. Otherwise known as a mess. A really big mess. The education
system has come under attack again and again recently. For elitism and
for lowering the bench mark on what it takes to pass simultaneously.
Each year when the future of Britain sits down to take their GCSEs
somehow more and more get a top flight mark, and each year the question
is raised in the press of: are the exams too easy and is this all a
government exercise in: hey now everyone is smart and its all down to
us. Somehow ignoring the fact that society is somehow becoming more
illiterate at the same time as the education system, supposedly, gets
better and better.
Secondary or High School:
Unlike American systems were one certificate carries everything us
Brits seem to specialise in specialising our subjects. At 14 years of
age children are advised or told what courses to put their name down
for their GCSE subjects. Then study those subjects to the point of
destruction or complete and utter hatred, whichever comes first. At the
end of two years the future generation takes their formal exams and
enters the world of the adult.. Or they continue onwards and upwards
the education train.
College:
Yep to get to University at 18 you have to study at college for you A
levels which is essentially refining that wonderful knowledge you
already gained to a heightened level. Also at this point is when the
student population starts learning of the wonder of pubs, sex and many
other wonderful toxic delights. So two years is definitely needed to
complete this refinement of your education.
University:
The place all students want to get to after all this is the place where
you get to escape your parents at last, learn how the world really
works, become one of the young genius in your field and leave so
horribly in debt after the first year, your still paying the debt off
when your 45. Yep university life is great, three years the potential
for a degree and your in debt to your government to the tune of 25,000
by the time your finished due to the loans you have to take out with
them. Does this system seem slightly screwed to you?
You know the worst thing though, a degree, three years of hard work
(possibly) does not even guarantee you a job now it possibly guarantees
you at best entry in a modern business. Kinda sad that isnt it?
Imperial College:
This is the premier science and medical institution in the University
of London group, opened in 1907 and coming up to the 100th anniversary
of its founding Imperial hits the highest of standards of the non red
brick universities even if by some its still classified as taking baby
steps.
Kings College:
Is almost the closest rival of Imperial in London at the moment but its
greater age and larger facilities means it is one of the best red brick
Universities in the region. Like Imperial it is part of the University
of London coalition.
Smog, fog, heat haze, you never really know what to expect in
London. Even the weathermen of the BBC never know what to expect, come
on they missed a hurricane in 1986 and said it was going to be sunny.
Still London weather is becoming less erratic, summers its hot, Winters
its cold thats about all you can expect right now. Oh yeah and theres
always the possibility of pigging rain, no matter how hot or cold the
weather is.
Daily and 5 day weather forecasts can be seen here.