Oh I did Peter. That's the reason I am annoyed. And I expressed it word by word my thoughts on this to the cops.
First of all I am not annoyed at the cops at all. Its with the person who called the cops. I have lots of great friends in the blue and I can't wait to have a go teasing them about this and telling them that this is how they waste the taxpayers money , chasing the innocent photographers (just joking ).

I turned to the cops and told them precisely what you just mentioned. I have two kids and would like people to be alert and call the cops if they saw something suspicious. But there is a fine line and that line is not obscure. Pretty easy to estabilish.
I told them that if someone had seen me pointing the camera to the group or taking a suspicious shot then I would understand. The person who called should have taken some time and observed me. But they didn't do it, because if they had done they would have seen that I was all the time with the tripod chasing the bleeming hoverfly, and on certain occasions stopped to chat with couple of our club runners etc.

The point was that they saw someone with a big camera and tripod, kids in the vicinity, an unshaven guy with track suit and a T shirt, and off they went assuming he is a after no good.

True Hefty, we definitely do not want to let them get one over us. Sad situation but I will ride this off.
Strange you even mention that my friends at the running club would be sympathetic. When I came back obviously I was eager to tell the ones that were still in the club what had happened and one of them works for child protection agency in the borough. How ironic that huh? . He turned to me and said himself that this paranoia against any person with a camera in hand and worse still if it looks professional is a phenomenon that has been pretty common nowadays. And in his experience working with the Scotland Yard the ones who commit these hideous crimes do not usually do it in this manner.
Sorry forgot to add that the chaps in the club including Brian (the guy from the child protection agency) were extremely sympathetic with me . That softened the aftermath blow that I came back with

Thanks for that Peter.
I won't let the situation change my ways and pursue my hobby that I have been enjoying to the max. I will ride this out.

I take things extremely personally and certain things do shake me a lot. I was absolutely furious, although controlled and not making a big fuss verbally over it, but I definitely wanted them to see that its not a nice feeling being innocent and being grilled like that in the presence of so many people.

Strange thing is while driving back home I suddenly remembered even who might have called the cops. A woman who was walking her dog passed by me and immediately I noticed her talking on the phone. Didn't give much notice to it at first but then 15 minutes later i noticed same woman passing by again with the dog and had a male escort with her, and I remember thinking, how strange, that route I saw her pass usually would have taken her at least 40 minutes to make a full circle and she would be coming back on the opposite direction, but that second time within that 15 minutes I saw her again coming from behind me, which had been the first time, and my first thought was, hmmm how come she passed by me in that direction and now she is again coming from the same side, definitely she must have crossed the woods soon she was out of my sight and then took the same trail again but this time with a male escort probably to pin my position again.

Absolute paranoia. There is a limit to caution and protection but this is way beyond any comprehension. Absolute paranoia.

What an end to a great day. What started by being a nice planned walk along the Woods in the Lido in Riuslip just turned absolutely sour with the grilling I just had by two cops.

I had decided to walk in the lido today instead of my usual run with the Hillingdon running club people as I am healing a calf injury, so what better than put my DA*60-250 to test again to get some shots of wildlife that its full of.

Half hour in my journey while stopped to try to snap some hoverflies with the camera attached to my tripod I suddenly see a male and female cop running towards me and soon they approached the male cop tells me that they had had a complaint from a member of the public that a person with a camera and long lens looking suspicious was trying to take pictures of kids that were playing in the nearby sands.
My first reaction was of astonishment and soon I got my act together I turned to them to ask if it was forbidden to take photos in the woods. They said that it wasn't and they were just there because there was a complaint and if I didn't mind showing them the images that I had taken while there. Obviously I didn't mind and showed them the few images of the hoverfly taken and in the meantime they wanted my details. I handed them my driving license and the male cop walked a few meters away and radioed to their base to confirm my details. During all that time the female cop kept on asking those typical cop questions "what do I do with the images" whether I sell them" and whether I come to the woods usually etc etc. Suffice to say that I am quite acquainted with these kind of questions having msyelf been on the receiving end a few times already, probably more than I would like even to remember. The cop approaches me and gives me back my id and says everything is ok and like he said before, they were not stopping me to take photos.

I turned to them and asked what if I had taken a landscape image of the area which I was in fact planning to do within a couple of hours as the sun set a bit more, and they would have found it in my camera, what would have been the situation then? As it was all they found was a mug shot of my running friend Andy which I had taken a few minutes before walking into the woods. They said they wouldn't have done anything and I would have carried out as normal. And probably it was someone being over protective that's why they called the cops.

For goodness sake, I go to this place several times with my kids, and I told them that there is a very thin line between being cautious and protective and overdoing it. Had someone seen me pointing the lens in a suspicious way or if I had done something to arouse suspicion then I would understand, but as it was there was nothing except just that someone had seen me with a DSLR camera with an unusual lens. So is this going to happen everytime I walk into the woods with the camera? I live 200 yards across the woods and I go often there to catch some birds.
They just said that as it was there was nothing stopping me to go into the woods and take pictures and it was unfortunate that someone called them so they had to check.

Besides being embarrassing people passing by and looking at two cops talking to me and clearly checking my camera etc, many people there certainly knew me from the neighbourhood, this was so embarrassing, unbelievably sad. All that time the runners from the club were passing by and all of them know me from the club, kids and ladies all going through that route and looking at these two cops giving me the grilling.
This was really sad.
They just finished the talk by telling me that I was free to go and they were not stopping me taking pictures if I wanted to.

Needless to say that I I just packed my stuff and walked back to the club absolutely saddened with the situation, got into my car and just drove home.

Peter,
In Portugal they are already selling it, but I also think its still a bit early.
So you know what they are exactly now? They are a mixture of peach and nectarine, but with a slightly different texture.

You see what I gret from this forum? , photography advice, knowledge about animal kingdom and great info on gardening,
no wonder I am hooked to this forum and I get very jumpy when I see someone blow his or her top of just out of nowehere and casts a shadow on the integrity of the nice little community

I tend to do that too, but the gardening topic yesterday left me all in a hyper mood

Ah, Peter, finally someone managed to put it into such simple terms .
Greatly put, that's what I had been attempting to say but look at the number of comments I had to go through and still hadn't managed to find the simple way of putting it.

Am so glad you said it all

Great stuff.
Thank you guys, big lesson learned here. Now I know how to calculate it .
You see? this are the things one gets from this forum

Absolutely chuffed with something new that I have just grasped.
thanks Stefan and Hefty.

huh? Is my maths letting me down? I thought from 250 to 300 is 50mm and from 50 to 60 is just 10mm.

So when is the wider side 10mm equates to the longer 50mm? Is this how its calculated with regard to lenses?
Am I missing something here?

Have I had too many puffs of that coloured smoke is it?

Are you trying to say that you want the onboard flash to fire but whenever you do it fires a preflash? And is that (preflash) that you want it cancelled is it?
If that is the case I think there is a way of doing it, but can you confirm that this is precisely what you want?