Moat Madness...

Grim as the unfolding saga of steroid-ridden bodybuilder-turned-murderous rampaging gunman Raoul Moat was, I couldn't help but laugh at some of its media manifestations.

First, the magnificent photo, reproduced everywhere in the British media, of gritty armed policemen stalking the fugitive gunman...


The Grauniad captioned the photo 'Police point guns and stunguns towards Moat'.

More accurate, I feel, would have been 'Gurning policeman auditions for You've Been Framed' or 'Gurning policeman finds rampaging gunman drama a bit of a laugh'. What was he thinking as the camera pointed his way? "I'll put me gritty face on, you never know, I might get a part in The Bill"?

EDIT: It has been suggested by various people that the gurning policeman may, in fact, be shouting at the photographers to get back. Now that I look at the photo more carefully, this seems a very plausible explanation, the copper's apparent snarl merely being a warning caught mid-shout by the eager snapper's camera shutter. If this is the case, then I apologise unreservedly for casting aspersions on a professional doing a tough job.

But even better was the news that Paul 'Gazza' Gascoigne, famous alcoholic nutter and one-time ball-botherer, appeared on a Geordie radio show pledging support to his old mate Moat.

The cherry on this particular newscake was the quote from his agent:

Gascoigne's agent, Kenny Shepherd, said: "He's doing what? I am sitting having an evening meal in Majorca. I'm speechless."

A wonderful scene is conjured of Mr Shepherd being phoned during his meal and told what Gazza's done now followed by a stream of half-chewed paella and four-letter amazement projecting from his mouth...

Silly Mugger...

I was mugged the other day. Saturday night, to be exact. Well, Sunday morning, to be anally precise.

This is the third time I’ve been mugged since moving to London in 1997.

The first was a brutal affair, back in 1999, as I was grabbed at knifepoint by three bastards who nicked everything on me, including my bankcard, with which they also emptied my tenuous account, before kicking the shite out of me. But they didn’t stab me, which was a victory of sorts.

A few years later, after a thoroughly lubricated evening down the pub, I was robbed at knifepoint by a little scrote who came up to me, asked for a pound, and then pressed a knife into my ample gut and demanded everything I’d got. This consisted of around £3.50 in change. He was genuinely aggrieved at this, whining, “Is that it?” as if expecting me to reply, “I'm terribly sorry, I forgot this Faberge egg stuffed in my back pocket.” It was my turn to be irritated at this point, and I explained, as if to an especially dim school child, that my pissed state was indicative of an evening in the pub and that, therefore, he was lucky I had as much as £3.50 left on me...

Last Saturday’s affair was even more feeble, demonstrating both a lack of commitment and a want of intelligence on the part of the mugger. I was proceeding in a homeward direction, having availed myself of a refreshing non-alcoholic drink at some friends’ flat (after a victorious pub quiz evening), when a youth in a hoodie (not at all a stereotype, then) ran up to me from behind, swung in front of me and said, one hand deep in a pocket and pushing out the front of his jacket, “I’ve got a gun, gimme everything.”

He looked more nervous than I was, so I handed over some small change, and with his free hand he patted down my pockets and took my phone and a memory stick, before patting a lump in a small pocket and asking, “Whassat, then?” “Those are my house keys.” “Oh right, I’ll leave you those.” Cheers, I thought, how chivalrous. Which, in the circumstances, it was. After grabbing my bag (which contained my Spitting Image Series 3 DVD, the bastard) he legged it. He completely missed the other pocket with my wallet, containing my bankcard, Oyster card, and £60 in cash. The knob-end.

Each time I’ve been mugged, it’s been a progressively pathetic affair, characterised more and more by idiocy tempered with almost a residual chivalry.

At this rate, I confidently expect, around 2015, to be mugged by some berk dressed as a Regency fop who will flounce up to me, wave a scented handkerchief around my nose, and lisp, “Stap me vitals, sirrah! Would you be so kind as to furnish me with the contents of your pockets, my good man?”

To which I shall reply, “Fuck off.”