Actually, you can sweet-talk your way off a lot of minor offences simply by being reasonable and polite. The Police have to deal with so many deliberately obstructive, rude and obnoxious folk that you earn major brownie points just for making their day smoother. A policeman once told my dad that I was the 'nicest person he'd ever arrested', which has to count for something. It doesn't quite mesh with my anarchistic bent, but I find my life is a lot easier if I'm on friendly terms with the constabulary, especially if I'm going to regularly meet up with them patrolling places I'm drinking every week. That said, now that I don't need to go drinking outside with a load of 15 year old mall-punks, my day to day acquintance with the police has dropped considerably.