Some places are safer than others – and some should be totally avoided! When you’re out and about on holiday, its difficult to know where to go and where to avoid, but generally speaking, follow the locals! If they avoid a route or certain hotel, its generally for a good reason – they live there, and know the area best.

Also, with the abundance of on-line review sites, it is really easy to find reviews for where you are visiting, and from real people, not just the holiday reps!

But whether you get to a paradise or a chamber in hell, be sensible with you belongings, and yourself, and you’ll be fine!

As our on-line usage has changed a lot over the last few years, with more and more people working, shopping, and socialising on-line. And this has obviously led to an increase in on-line crime as people find new ways to exploit people’s honesty and openness. So people warn each other, look out for each other.

But one of the scariest things to follow, is the fake warnings – messages and files that are circulated that actively allow malicious people to access your details, and retain personal information about you.

So how do you help others, and be safe? How do you make sure what you’re saying is to the right people?

Check it out first, don’t just randomly recirculate info.

The police and governing bodies need to have a way of checking up on shops that sell age restricted items; but actually paying young teenagers to go in and purchase alcohol seems a little strange to me.

Surely getting young teens to buy cigarettes and alcohol will simply show them, and their friends, that it can be done and where to go to get it?

I also wonder how these children are picked; are they the sons and daughters of police officers, are they selected at random? How do the police verify if the children they are using in the checks are “honest” enough not to be doing this themselves?

In the run up to Christmas, we will see a lot of warnings on how to be safe with our possessions, homes and selves. Unfortunately, in the world we  live in, there are those that will not be deterred by an alarm or a lock, and will still force their way into your homes and lives and take what they think they can profit from.

This has recently happened to a friend of mine, and the hardest part is not the loss of the expensive TV, but the loss of family jewellery that’s been passed down for generations, and the feeling that your home is no longer safe.

A week following the break-in, they’ve had damaged windows and doors replaced, and have changed all the locks, but they’ve also “detoxed” the house. A thorough clean and sort out, top to bottom, has reassured them that there’s nothing in the house to be worried about, and has also let them arrange belongings to hide the gaps where other things once stood/hung.

Replacing an expensive electrical items and jewellery is easy, getting the memories to leave is not.

The vast majority of the world’s population live honest, law-abiding lives, yet those that don’t are increasingly seen as a source of entertainment and interest to people. Human nature appears to be increasingly drawn to those that live outside of the norms of society, but why?

Those people who hurt and destroy for no other reason than their own twisted gratification are a menace, not only to their victims, but to those they can influence.

However, the need to know about such evils is obvious; to learn how and why these people operate in this way allows us to avoid falling into their traps, but why do we go out of our way to befriend them?

Is it simply a need to know?