a pleasant police presence

[mr.who]

Hey everyone,

I'm translating an English travel guide of Edinburgh and having some questions over a sentence.
Here's the context: "A few steps downhill, at #188 (on the right), is the Police Information Center. This place provides a pleasant police presence (say that three times) and a little local law-and-order history to boot."

My questions are: 1) Does "a pleasant police presence" here mean "adequate police personnel"?
2) What could "say that three times" possibly imply here?
3) How should I understand "boot" in the sentence?

Your help would be very much appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Hermione Golightly]

'Pleasant police' sounds like an oxymoron. The police really are pleasant, polite and agreeable, that's why you need to say it three times to assure yourself that it's true. 'To boot' is an expression meaning 'in addition'.

 

[Szkot]

The joke here is that 'Pleasant police presence' is difficult to say because of the way the three words begin - if you say that three times (quickly) you might mix up the sounds and say something like 'present pleece peasant'.

 

[se16teddy]

Yes, “a police presence” is a journalistic collocation referring to police attending an event or incident. I suppose the people staffing the Police Information Centre were nice (pleasant) to the author of the article when he or she visited. And the author enjoyed the Tongue twister - WordReference.com Dictionary of English, even though the reader in this case did not.

 

[Szkot]

I suppose the people staffing the Police Information Centre were nice (pleasant) to the author of the article when he or she visited.

That is what they are paid to be. This is a service provided for tourists who need help, not necessarily as victims of crime.

 

[mr.who]

Thanks a lot, everyone! Your replies are extremely helpful.