There is a small wooden pier which goes a few feet into the Thames in
the city of London, England where (according to legend) one cannot be
arrested, either by the shore police nor the harbor patrol. Can you
tell me the name of this pier and exactly where it is located?

The last I heard it was full and there's a long waiting list.

probonopublico-ga

aOf course it's full, but there's always room for one more and I'm
getting desparate.

I meant desperate. Sorry, mis-clicked.

I heard that you actually can be arrested there, but you'll have to be
tried by a jury of your piers.

Hi, Beauregard

Hope you find the wooden pier and that you also get a room. I hear
that hotel clerks always keep one in reserve for a guest prepared to
slip a lavish tip.

It certainly worked for me when I went to Warsaw without a confirmed
booking. Sadly, the man I went to visit who did have a confirmed
booking had to sleep on a park bench ... I wonder how that could have
happened?

It's a great legend.

All the Best

Bryan

I knew that this was more than a $2.00 question. So I?ll up the ante
by offering a $20.00 reward to the first person who answers correctly.
Wrong answers get nothing. When I wrote desperate I meant it. The fuzz
are on my tail and I don?t have much time left before they catch me. I
need to achieve the pier in the worst way. Now Miss Pink: That was a
terrible pun, but I?ll forgive you if you can answer my question. I
didn?t make it up. I?ve been there and I?ve seen the pier. At the time
however, the Law wasn?t after me so I just filed its existence away
for future reference. It?s the future now but I?ve forgotten where I
filed the name.

Andy,

In addition to using your question as a launching-point for a dreadful
pun, I did give this a serious try, and I couldn't find anything for
you. I suspect that a Researcher from the UK will have better luck.

~Pink

Andy,

If Pink can't find it with her access to the Delphic Oracle and all
the gods that you care to name and then some, then I suggest that a
more prosaic methodology is required.

Have you tried an on-line booking agency?

Or, have you searched using the 'de' directory?

All the Best

Bryan

Good gravy, General, I had a feeling that compromising kitty porn
would be your undoing.  So, how long are you needing sanctuary and
should we take up a collection and buy you a hump?  I'm thinking you
should've stuck with ye olde garden variety froufroutement which only
gets you chafed, not chased.

I'll consult with my Brit pal, Jim Buoy, and see if we can locate this
pier of yours.  Touch wood, we can get this 'incident' cleared up
before you can say 'quid agitur de matre mea.'

And may I say you collect (and promptly lose!) curious snippets of
information, Mr. Snollygoster.

Voila:

Your mother is involved because I've already asked her and she didn't
know the answer, and I find it extremely unlikely that you have a
friend named Jim Buoy who knows anything about piers.

Sorry, sir, I was having Versed-like Famke Janssen flashback.  Jim who??

Voila,
Hmmm. You brought up the subjects a) Your mother: 'quid agitur de
matre mea.' and b) Jim Buoy. I was only replying, answering your Latin
phrase and saying that a man named Buoy probably doesn't know anything
about piers. I meant no disrespect. I'm under great stress, as you may
imagine. Just now I was convinced that the workmen who are replacing
my neighbor's driveway are really the police. Turns out they aren't.

Wasn't Jim Buoy a character in "The Waltons"?

Ahhh, we're just joshin' with ya, General.  You know we always like to
have fun with our 'regulars.'  Your questions are quite tasty and full
of naughty bits so it's a pleasure to see your name on the GA scroll.

I've been looking for your 'immunity pier' in between correcting
reports like ... "the patient is  impulsive, noncomplient, confused,
disoriented, anosmic agnostic (WTF??)(anosognostic), delusional, and
paranoid ..." so I have permanent brain damage from hitting my head on
the desk.

You draw your curtains, have a smoke and a siesta, and we'll be
looking into a relocation plan for ya.  I'll even have Mum muck out
the bunker in back just in case you need a plan B.

She has a strict "no cat porno" policy though.

Anyway, rest assured we have our top *and* bottom people on your
question.  Also, on your behalf, I've contacted Famke Janssen, John
Boy Walton, and Camilla Parker Bowles just in case they can provide
any clues.

In the meantime, we'll entertain you with our particular brand of
silliness until your answer comes through.

So, did ya ever dye your hair 5RR True Red, rinse it out in the shower
but have a reeeellly slow running drain, and return 4 hours later to a
scene that looks like an evisceration has taken place in your tub? 
Scary.

Relax, General.  Our operators are standing by....

Voila,
I'll sleep well tonight knowing you are on the job. I don't dye my
hair, but I do put it up in curler [sic] now and again. I've disguised
myself as a nun and am roaming the streets of Greater Detroit. Now and
again I pop into an Internet Cafe to communicate with you. I've my
ticket to London and my passport safely pinned under my Habit. The cat
will be well taken care of until I return after the statute of
limitations runs out in 10 years. Until that time I expect to be cold
and hungry standing on a pier in the Thames. But I need to find the
thing first.

Yours in perpetuity,
Beauregard Jackson Pickett Coburn

Great News, Andy

I went to London yesterday for the sole purpose of locating the small
wooden pier in the Thames that you enquired about.

Suitably armed with a powerful telescope and a thermal imaging laser,
I hired a powerful craft and ordered the helmsman to sail up and down
the City banks until a wooden pier appeared on the horizon.

And Voila! Before you could say Pinkfreud there it was. Hewed out of
massive chunks of the best Quebracho, it loomed before me.

A heavenly choir started and the troup of dancing girls did the Black
Bottom ... My cruise director had brought them along to provide some
pier end entertainment. However, they already had some pierrots in
residence.

But was that pier humming!

Someone lowered a ladder and we started to climb up.

Obviously, I said, 'Ladies first' but after all the dancing girls had
made the ascent, they hauled up the ladder, leaving me, the helmsman
and my cruise director still on board.

Of course, after I had flashed a wad of fifties (all counterfeits),
they relented and I joined the happy throng and saw several familiar
faces.

I enquired about future visiting rights but I was told that it is
strictly for disgraced politicians.

So, I've still got some work to do.

Apparently it's such a success that they're now setting up franchises.
The Mississippi, the St Lawrence, the Amazon, the Nile, the Rhine and
the Ganges have already been taken.

Apparently it's the NEXT BIG THING.

ProBono (may I call you ProBono?) Of course I fully expected a
Google-Answerer to make the trip to London as you describe. I would
have gone myself but why should I when you would go instead? I must
chide you, however, for falling into the sexist trap of allowing women
off the boat first. This you should not have done. It?s every man for
himself, as I?m wont to say. I?m still absorbing all that you wrote,
so I?ll add another comment once done.

Pro (may I call you Pro?):

Sadly, I believe you have found an ersatz pier and not my pier at all.
I say this because you should have heard a choir of Angels singing
Handel?s Hallelujah Chorus. There would have been a shaft of light
breaking through the clouds illuminating the pier. So you?ve found a
brand-x pier ? just a run-of-the-mill, common pier actually ? and not
my Immunity Pier after all. I wonder what characteristic your pier
embodies? Maybe it?s a pier where it never rains until after sundown?
Or one where the moonlight appears just after 9:00 p.m.? Maybe it?s a
pier where, by law, there?s not a more congenial spot for
happily-ever-aftering?. (wait. I think I?ve just written a song
lyric).

And so, our quest continues??.

Hi, Bo (may I call you Bo?):

The Customer is always right!

Although there are a thousand or so disgraced politicians in residence
who may probably disagree.

As you may know, Hitler, sought sanctuary there after WWII. One day,
he passed away and was buried at sea. Very hush hush but years later,
his skeleton was washed ashore. The experts identified it as Hitler
from the silly moustache and the skeleton's arm which was raised in
that unmistakable salute.

The acid test will be if the shore patrol or the harbor police should
ever make a swoop. By the way that's not the correct way to spell
'harbour', is it?

Well no, it isn't but then again the Customer is always right!

I've now called off the search.

Finding one pier was all you specified, so if you want me to find
another pier that will cost you another $2.50.

Sorry to be so mercenary.

The Pro.

Don't forget I've added a $20.00 kicker to the original $2.00. So you
stand to make a full $22.00. I don't make that much in a week, so you
should count yourself fortunate. And your nome de plume would lead me
to believe that you didn't need the income being a top-notch Google
Answerer brings in.

And just where did you get that nonsense about the customer always
being right? In my experience customers are usually as wrong as wrong
can be. The phrase should be "Pretend that the customer is always
right" or "Let the customer think that you think he's always right".
Then as soon as he's left, talk about him.

As an aside, I've never asked a Google Question that I just made up.
Every question has been real. There really is a word whose meaning is
"a furtive rustling beneath the sheets" and there really is a pier
such as I've described. Of course the possibility exists that the pier
has long since fallen into the Thames (taking the politicians and CEOs
with it). It was, after all, 1970 when I last stood on this pier
feeling oh so impervious to arrest.

Hi, Again, Bo

Sadly, I am unable to cash in on your kind offer of even a modest
payment for my efforts on your behalf because I have just had my 35th
Application to become an Authorised Researcher refused ...

To Whom It May Concern

You must be joking! Don't you dare waste our time again.

(Signed) Director of Human Resources

With the greatest respect ...

Why did you ever quit the pier in the first place?

Or, at least, leave some chalk marks on the pavement, etc. so you
could have always found it again in case of emergency?

The Pro

Oh Dear P,
How sad I am for you. Rejection is so demoralizing. Maybe I could send
an e-mail and put in a good word for you?

But you are correct: I should have had the sense to mark the pier so I
could find it again. I did not and I will forever be sorry.

Let's consider this subject closed. The pier is lost forever.

Amen

Ummm....

I wonder, does the "Ark" pass under the pier?

Steph (may I call you Steph),

Only the wee-est ark could pass under this pier as it was only a foot
or two above the mean level of the Thames. At times, I would imagine,
it would be under water itself.