» I witnessed a crime

Crimes, I've seen a few...
In a lifetime in Salford, the following crimes I've seen;
12 Schoolies stealing,
11 Drunken drivers,
10 counts of arson,
9 burning Metros,
8 pikey muggings,
7 senseless kickings,
6 lewd conducts,
Fiiive Drun-ken Brawls!
4 brutal stabbings,
3 paedo teachers,
2 battered housewives,
And my bike which was stolen from me!

Apologies for the Christmas-like song, but I needed something cheery to suppress the memories of that lost bike. *sniff*
(Thu 14th Feb 2008, 13:20, More)

» I witnessed a crime

On a more serious note.
I do have a tale of two crimes. A very bad one I missed, and an even worse one that I saw in all its horror.

Step back to the halcyon days of 2003. A just-turned-18 Mr.6 03 is celebrating in the pub (The Town Hall in Eccles, so you can all avoid it) with a group of friends, as his close companion Mr. H has decided to bite the bullet, drop out of college and pursue a career of dodging bullets in the sand - or so he thought.

Enter three of the pikey-est scum known to man, the sort of hairy knuckle-draggers that prove Darwinism works in reverse too, the kind of person who couldn't tell his head from his arse until he started shitting. In short, the sort of person that populate all the answers in this QOTW.

We think nothing of it, until the youngest one starts hanging around the pool table. He challenges one of us to a game, our best player duly dispatches him. Spitting mad he challenges me.

"Wot rules we playin' mate?"
"Swinton rules chief. That alright?(ie the rules I played every week in the Swinton pool hall)"
"Ooo da fuck's Swinton? Cunt, yoor in fuckin' Eccles now, innit?"

Fair enough, thinks I. Game played, he wins - mainly because the mad animal glint from under his neanderthal forehead put me off slightly. I drink up, and have a quick word with Mr. H about how if we stayed, it'd kick off. He assures me he'll be out after the girls have all drunk up, and satisfied I leave the pub with the most sensible of the girls.

Fast forward 3 hours. I have a phone call from a sobbing girl and hotfoot it to the local A&E.

During those three hours, the first of the crimes had been committed. True to his word, Mr. H had rounded up the other revellers and moved to safer ground. All bar one girl, who thought knew better. Persuaded to return 20 minutes later, our group agree to another game of pool. Neanderthal the younger attempts to grope one of the girls, she slaps him, and all hell breaks loose.

The girl in question is punched to the floor. Her boyfriend receives a broken arm when he stops a stool being smashed into her prone head and is duly hurled through the jukebox. Another one of our friends is beaten about the head and neck with a pool cue, leaving him with a six inch gash to the scalp and lots of bruising. Then the three pikeys make their getaway. But they stop at the door, spot Mr. H calling the police on his mobile and grind a bottle into his eyes before stealing his phone.

Back in the A&E, I've just walked in to see three of my friends bloodied and battered, and the air filled with the screams of Mr. H, who is currently having broken glass removed from his face and the insides of his eyelids - a procedure that cannot be done under sedation. That sound, and the sight of him in a wheelchair, head bandaged, will stick with me until the day I die.

Fast forward 12 months. Mr. 603 is now a student, returning home for the first time - to accompany a now fully recovered (to the point that he can see just well enough to fail the army medical) Mr. H to the trial of two of the three thugs that nearly blinded him. The trial should have taken place four months earlier, but the defendants' brief had managed to delay the hearing. Into the court we go, seats are taken, and I view the most horrific crime ever committed against one of my friends as a helpless bystander.

Those four months are important. The brief points out to the judge, that the glass-grinding thug now has a job for the first time ever, and has been working for the past three months. Sending him to prison would deprive his three-month pregnant wife the income to support his unborn daughter. The criminal in question, a fucking judge who wouldn't know justice if it picked up a WKD bottle and blinded him with it, passed his verdict.

"In light of the fact that the guilty party is now in gainful employment, and about to become a father, it would be unfair to hand down a custodial sentence. Therefore he will serve a 2 year sentence, suspended for 18 months as long as he stays out of trouble. Case closed."

Now that is, without a doubt, the worst crime I've ever seen. Aiding and abetting a thug in robbing my friend of his dream.
(Thu 14th Feb 2008, 15:28, More)

» Bullshit and Bullshitters

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you "The Book"
Ah, bullshitters. I'm a bullshitter myself, but there was a man I had the misfortune to meet who blew my pretensions to bullshithood out of the water.

So much so, in fact, that during our 6th form days, someone transcribed 120 of his fibs into a document known as "The Book".

B3tans, I have a copy of that book. I've removed the shit that stopped being funny after I finished college, and names have been changed to protect the innocent. But here, for your amusement, is The Book.

1 - 90% of all college couples are set up by Goon, even though, by his own admittance, more than half of those don’t actually know it.

2 - Goon knows everyone at Eccles College. Even though when he buddies up to random people they just look at him funny and walk away. Que “aww she’s just being funny she's always like that. More the fact she doesn’t know him?

3 - He once went to Scotland in a taxi. More precisely, he went from his house, to Scotland, to Heathrow airport, then back home again. All in the same taxi.

4 - This was to reunite two friends at an airport to rekindle romance.

5 - He got to the departure lounge without a passport, because he “knew people”. (bear in mind this was after September 11th 2001)

6 - He then paid for the taxi with his credit card. Taxis take credit card??

7 - He had said credit cards at age 17

8 - Ex girlfriend cheated on him with his best friend and got pregnant. He found out when the clinic rang to use his credit card.

9 - Karma punished ex-girlfriend now has twins because she had so many abortions she could have no more.

14 - Went to someone’s house in Nottingham to break in and steal the a video he'd bought on eBay of a girl he fancied making the beast with two backs. Fair enough. I know Ebay dealers can be slow to deliver but this is a bit extreme.

17 - After telling us he smoked 40 cigs a day, he couldn’t smoke one cig, and didn’t inhale.

18 - He has a local girls number he can phone for sex …. (Virgin) needless to say when we rang the number to check it didn’t exist.

19 - Has/Getting every Nirvana single, album, release ever, all originals too.

20 - Had standing Feeder tickets. Because he knew big gangland ticket touts. On the night of the gig he showed them off, they were a few back row seating tickets that didn’t sell out till last minute.

21 - He is Sarah Wattmore’s (X-Factor no-mark) regional manager. She was some” pop stars” contestant who released a single, and he had a range of “duties to her” including..

22 - He is Sarah Wattmore’s Personal Bodyguard

23 - He is Sarah Wattmore’s best friend and accompanies her everywhere.

24 - He is also manager for several pop acts.

25 - He gets his clients on Key 103.

26 - Attends most showbiz parties.

27 - Went to Ireland to raise money on his own over Xmas.

28 - Raised half a million pounds.

29 - By bungee jumping.

30 - He has his own registered charity.

31 - He has an IQ of over 200, infact, it is immeasurable, but it is definitely higher than Carol Vorderman’s.

32 - He’s the second smartest man in Britain

33 - Mensa heard of him and invited him to join, but he knocked them back.

34 - Northwest chess champion.

35 - He’s had to sign the Official Secrets act twice.

36 - He gets top-secret Ministry of Defence information.

37 - He communicates with Iraq.

38 - He has psychic dreams.

40 - He is a computer genius.

41 - He put many highly dangerous viruses onto the college network, although there is no evidence of this at all.

42 - The college sculptures garden is out of bounds because him and his friends went in and stuck shiny paper to the sculptures with prit stick. Whoa shiny paper and prit stick. Hardcore.

43 - Several different fight boasts.

44 - He once walked across Britain, going into at least one pub in every town.

45 - His Norman Bates style mother keeps him locked in.

46 - His evil lawyer sister aids his mother in doing this.

47 - His mother was once a professional poker player who made £1000 a month (although when he was confronted about a poorly shuffled deck he claimed his mother had done it. Professionals eh?

50 - His mother played poker to pay off her student loan, he will do the same.

51 - He cross dresses at weekends and on holidays to make money for charity.

52 - He was an alcoholic from the ages 12-15. n.b we were at the pub a few weeks after this hardened alcoholic had said this, he had 2 pints and passed out on the table. We set fire to his hair but that’s not the point.

53 - He had a full-grown beard at 12.

55 - He slit his wrists 6 months ago but the scars healed and completely disappeared.

60 - He “owns” the gay village, he knows everyone and can get people banned from it if he doesn’t like them.

61 - Cannot ever get pissed because of his previous alcoholism.

62 - Goon runs a street gang in Manchester.

63 - The Triads killed 4 of his best friends during a gang fight.

64 - Now he is in battle with the Triads for revenge.

65 - He signed a peace treaty with the Triads.

67 - He organised the whole 1st February 2003 peace protest march on London.

68 - He had people from Sydney ringing him to co-ordinate the march.

69 - He led the march, although he didn’t go.

70 - Police in his area had stopped working well, so him and his mates took the law into his own hands and beat up all the scallies and drug dealers.

71 - He used to be a professional singer. Anyone who had heard him sing knows this is hilarious.

72 - He was a choirboy who went to church every day for 12 years.

73 - He played Rugby Union for 8 years, and nearly died when he broke his neck playing it.

74 - He can now play no sports because his body is so badly damaged.

75 - He has taken lead roles in many stage productions. He was one of the T-Birds in Grease, Bill in Oliver, Pharaoh in Joseph and his Technicolor dream coat, yet he doesn’t remember the lines, the songs or even the main story line of them.

76 - He sees a psychiatrist, psychologist and a counsellor.

77 - He used to make himself ill-using his mind, and now he did this so much that his body rejects illness.

78 - He has had several near death experiences.

79 - He meets lots of famous people. He even listed them on a piece of paper. Rob Andrews, Will Carling, David Beckham, Atomic Kitten, Sven Goran Eriksson, Paul Scholes (who he apparently went to school with), Erik Cantona, Peter Schmeichel, Alfie Inge Haaland, Heather Small, Michael Ball, The Corrs, and INME, (he pronounces it “in may”) I would’ve picked better “celebrities” to meet.

81 - When he was 8 he went to the Lake District with his mum. He wandered off, fell into a stream, hit his head on a rock, was knocked unconscious and was washed half a mile UPstream. He then landed in a field.

85 - When he was 15 he worked in a pub in Brighton on a 48-hour shift because it had a special licence to open that long as it was its 100th anniversary. Despite the fact that he was only 15 and living in Eccles at the time, plus the whole fact that such a shift would break many laws.

86 - He adopted a Pony off the Internet.

87 - At Salford University last year, he spilt highly corrosive acid all over his arm, but didn’t notice until his entire sleeve had burned away. Amazingly enough his arm was unharmed.

88 - Goon talks to Steven Hawking over the Internet through a chat room.

89 - Goon came up with S.H.’s theories on black holes and time.

90 - Steven Hawking told him that his wife beats him. (AMAZINGLY this turned out to be true)

92 - His school (st. pats) had sent him on work experience to a vet where he performed major life saving surgery on a dog. They gave him the full gear to do this, white mask gloves everything! Where was the vet ?!?!

95 - There is a song by the Foundations that makes him cry whenever he hears it because it was played at a funeral he went to when he was 5 years old. He doesn’t actually remember what the song is or how it goes though. So how does it make him cry?

96 - On his aunties farm, the dog began to choke on a bird head, so he knocked it out with tranquilliser injections from the barn (which were there because the sheep had given birth) I don’t know if sheep give birth to tranquilliser injections but I don’t think vets knock out a birthing animal. so after doing this, when the dog was knocked out, he performed a tracheotomy by cutting a hole in the dogs throat and putting a tube in it. Why didn’t he just remove the bird’s head from the dog’s throat? And where was the tube from? Apparently the dog is still alive and jumps up at him every time he goes to see them.

98 - He did in his Achilles tendon in 3 months ago and yet had no physiotherapy but it is fine enough to play football on.

100 - He has his cigarettes specially imported from America, yet they can be bought at any newsagents, and if you look at the label they are made in the UK with all duties paid.

101 - He has a friend in the IRA who tips him off about bombs.

102 - He knew about the Omaha bombing before it happened and tried to stop it but couldn’t.

103 - The IRA gives him bomb-making materials but he won’t use them.

104 - He was part of the chorus when the Rocky Horror Show came to Manchester, but his best mate lost his video camera on the night and so couldn’t film it.

105 - He was tortured by the Triads, but now he helps do drug deals with them as part of his peace deal with them.

106 - He has lost 27 of his friends in the past 2 months. Jesus they drop like flies for imaginary people!

107 - Whenever “they” (unspecified) put on a show of Phantom of the opera he was chosen as lead role.

108 - The mole on his head is a special birthmark and it means that if he is pierced there he will die. What a pity, I hear mole-piercing is all the rage at the moment too.

109 - He has represented many friends in court as a lawyer.

110 - Went on a 13-pub crawl and drank 14 pints, but wasn’t pissed.

111 - The police are investigating him for killing Triad members.

112 - He was followed for hours by a UFO and was then abducted by aliens.

113 - He got drunk, climbed over college walls at night and woke up in the morning with steps kids poking him with sticks.

114 - He lost his “gay virginity” on his first date with his new boyfriend Fakey

116 - After discovering about this very book, Goon embarked upon his revenge mission codenames “operation Jeremiah.” Jeremiah was the first person to ever truly betray Goon, when at the tender age of 5 he got the bike that Goon wanted.

117 - His ex told him that he was the father of her child, “Goon jr” the surviving twin. She was suing him for child support.

118 - She got a DNA test to prove he was the father, without him giving a sample of any kind.

119 - Eventually after many questions, he announced that she had only tried to con him out of money and she had faked the DNA test. No shit it was faked, he didn’t even give a sample.

I'd apologise for length, but according to number 121, it'd put the average cetacean to shame.
(Thu 13th Jan 2011, 14:06, More)

» Shoplifting

Oh, for a life of (petty) crime...
Well personally, my history as a criminal mastermind extends as far as a few toilet rolls from the University toilets, the odd stolen drink/cigarette from a club and one packet of Scampi Fries that I still feel quite bad about, but I've met a few people that have made shoplifting into an art form.

For some unfathomable reason, our craphole High School decided that to mark the Millennium they'd take a group of 40 or so Salford kids to the pristine, trusting nation of Canada. Bad plan. We hadn't left Manchester Airport's departure lounge before two enterprising young fellows had appropriated a couple of cartons of duty free cigarettes. The nine hour flight sped by as my light-fingered friends emptied the duty-free trolley, and then Canada stretched out in front of us like a kleptomaniac's wet dream. In little over a week, five lads in particular stole over £1,000 worth of souvenir keychains, hockey paraphernalia, electrical goods and, in one memorable escapade, a full-sized faux moose head. How they managed it, I'll never know.

But even this valiant attempt pales in comparison to what I witnessed in a minibus at a service station. As I sat there, waiting to get back on the road, three pikeys who were travelling to London with us appeared holding plates. Three full English breakfasts were placed on an upturned lager box, followed by three knives, three forks, three cups, three saucers, three teaspoons, a pot of tea, a handful of milk cartons, a box of napkins and six rounds of toast. How anyone has the sheer brass bollocks to walk into a Road Chef, order three breakfasts with extras, pocket it all and carry it to a waiting getaway vehicle without being caught or spilling any is absolutely beyond me, but hats off to them.
(Thu 10th Jan 2008, 13:36, More)

» What's the hardest you've tried to get dumped?

Well, not really a dumping...
We lay there, in the bed. The sunlight was just creeping through the curtains, and she lay there, staring at me.

"I'm sorry for everything that happened, I really am. I never meant to say the things I did, and I'd really like to make it up to you. I've been thinking things over all night, and I think I've come to a decision. I just really want to know what you're thinking. Please, just tell me."

I stared back at her, the one woman I knew who was foolish enough to let me sleep with her, but one who'd tried to ruin my life afterwards. Here it was, the carrot of reconciliation being hung in front of my nose, and all I had to do to get a bolt-on shag was to say something romantic.

I cleared my throat, breathed in, and said those words that every woman longs to hear.

"I'm just wondering if Matteo will be fit enough to start today. Our defence has been pretty shaky without him."

I had to fish my jeans out of a bush, and I never did get the shoe that she threw at my face back.
(Thu 5th Jun 2008, 15:29, More)