Top of the Gorm

Hello children.

Let’s play a game, shall we?

Let’s see who we might like to elect as the North West’s leading gormless barmpot.

Burnley shoplifter caught applying for job at shop he stole from.

A COCAINE addict who went stealing in Colne Asda then went back there to apply for a job - but was recognised from CCTV footage .

I’m nominating this particular wheel-unbroken butterfly as Candidate Number One.

Burnley Crown Court heard how Simon Holden, 22, helped himself to some more lager from near the door as he left.

Holden, of Dall Street, Burnley, had also admitted theft and resisting police in breach of a suspended sentence after pinching muscle building powder worth £53 from Boots and then giving the police false details.

Fair’s fair. The police are busy people, and I’m sure that his story wasn’t something utterly unbelievable like ‘I’m a half white guy (who is probably) from a full State of the Union and a willing collaborator of crooks, unrepentant terrorists and Marxist agitators who willingly sought out and joined themost corrupt party machine in any city anywhere in North America, but you can call me Abraham Lincoln and I’m going to make the penicillin run on time and it’ll be cheaper and delivered more fairly and responsively to customer needs just like the US Mail and the IRS do…’ It was probably something fiendishly clever, such as ‘ I am Kevin Smith, of 112A Colne Road, and you can find it on the Observer’s Book Of Addresses Whose Inhabitants Can’t Be Checked On The Police National Computer For Any Previous When, For Example, Apprehended For Suspected Allegations Of Potentially Being A Shoplifter. Honest Guv. So let me go.’

And they did. Another victory for commonsense and community policing and I think a sure-fire team nomination for Candidate Number Two for the selfsame county constabulary that closed down Nightjack. *

Holden, who also asked for a theft offence to be considered, won his freedom - but got a ticking off from a judge who told him he had wasted his youth.

Recorder David Williams told the defendant, who may inherit a property through bereavement he was in a better position than lads of his age coming out of university with debts of £20,000 or "young lads of your age who are putting their lives at risk."

The judge told Holden, who had been on remand: "The choice is yours. You either waste your life or make something of it."

Cocaine addiction combined with having a sellable asset being proverbially linked to making something of one’s life. It’s right up there with other axiomatically probable eventualities as Steven Hawkins’ Tribute to Elvis CD and the straight-to-DVD cult classic Debbie Does Darwen.

The defendant was given 52 weeks in jail, suspended for two years.

Step forward, Recorder David Williams: Candidate Number Three.

The court was told Holden had been given the suspended term in September last year for house burglary committed last July on Castle Street, Nelson.

He had raided the home of an acquaintance and stolen his laptop. The defendant had previously been to the victim's house and knew the computer would be in the house during the day whilst the householder was out.

Letting your junkie pals into your home Mi casa, su case-style and showing them your IT gear is a great old Lancashire tradition like renaming Preston Polytechnic as a university and bobbing for ferrets.

So The Acquaintance wins a treasured slot alongside those other noted titanic intellects from the left-hand bit of England between the Wirral and the Solway Firth as Candidate Number Four, complete with a grab-bag of bonus goodies including a much-prized Crackerjack** pencil, a Blue Peter Badge, a Blankety-Blank cheque book and pen, and that legendary collector’s item: a man-size Nuclear Power No Thanks jock-strap.

He told police he needed to pay off a drugs debt.

As reasonable a plea in mitigation for a crime as any I’ve heard since the one alluded to here by DJ.

In April, Holden was given a community order. He had stolen twice from Asda.

The defendant had taken four boxes of lager worth £40, was caught on CCTV and three days later went back and filled in a job application. He was recognised by an employee and as he left took two more boxes of alcohol. The defendant had 41 previous convictions.

41.

We put up with this.

All the above were great contestants for such a prestigious award.

It was a hard choice to make, ladies and gentlemen; believe you me.

In the end and in all modesty and without the slightest sense of shame I was obliged to invest myself with the title of Northwest Barmpot Of The Year 2009.

Why ever else am I not out there in the streets of Castle City right now, clad only in Mrs. Northwester’s skateboarding knee elbow pads, my Original Series Star Trek pixie boots and an Asda beret: simultaneously mooning and semaphoring at the neighbours and pelting their double glazed windows with shrink-wrapped Sharon fruits and screaming ‘We’re all mad! We’re all bloody mad, do you hear me?’

* See here.

** Crackerjack!