A Brit in Baltimore

I've still only seen the first season of The Wire -- I watched it back when I was living in Baltimore, where it's set. (As I mentioned at the time, the viewing of one episode was punctuated, appropriately enough, by the real-life sounds of gunshots and a police helicopter outside.) It's an excellent show, and the remaining seasons are in my queue now that I've run through the available episodes of Mad Men.

Apparently the show has gained notice in the UK, and there have even been instances of politicians using it as a point of reference (along the lines of "Violent crime has increased, but it's not like The Wire"). According to a new blog that went up today at the Baltimore Sun, The Independent, a British paper, approached them about sending a reporter for a stint in Baltimore, to see whether the actual city resembles the one portrayed on the show. The Sun is in turn sending one of its own crime reporters to London to compare how crime and the justice system work there. Looks like it's only a two-week project, which I would say is not really enough time to get a nuanced understanding of the how the systems portrayed in The Wire work, but it should be interesting nonetheless.

And here's a game: with apologies to the Sun for snatching their images, here are the headshots of the two reporters involved in the exchange...can you guess which one is from Baltimore and which one is from London? Click through to the blog to see of you were right. Your chances of guessing correctly are high.