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!

Hill Street Rainbows

You want silly?
I've got silly.

Lancashire Police hits targets on minority staff
Lancashire Police have exceeded targets for the number of ethnic minority and female staff they have recruited.



Roll call. East Lancashire police station. 6 AM

Desk Sergeant. ‘Alright. Listen up. Sergeant Jekyll won’t be on duty today -’ boos and cat calls from the Day Shift police officers - ‘Stomach problems;he drank something that agreed with me. I’m Sergeant Hyde and I’ll be standing in for him today so if you were going to say it to him, or do it to him' - jeers and ribaldry - ‘ Then tell it to me, or do it to me. I’ll be sure to pass anything you say on once he’s on our feet again.
After the briefing I’ll be taking a voluntary cash collection for those of you wishing to buy him a get-well-soon gift which I confidently expect will be 100% of you and that goes double for the Siamese Twins -...
What? Sorry, I mean that ' that goes double for the Conjoined Twins' in the Equestrian Unit.
Now here’s Inspector T with the Night Shift briefing.’

‘ 'TANK YOU, SERCHENT HYDE. OFFICERS THE-IMPALER UND SPIKE HAFF TO REPORT ZAT DER ACCRINGTON FLASHER VILL NO LONKER POSE ANY SREAT TO DER WIMMIN OFF DER TOWN - AT LEAST NOT UNTIL SUNDOWN ON THURSDAY NIGHT. DETECTIVE-CORPUSCLE SPIKE HAS ASKED IF ANYVUN OF DER CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY VILL LIASE VIZ DER CRICKET TEAM UND VISIT DER LATE FLASHER IN DER MORTUARY VIZ SCHTUMPS UND MALLET BEFORE THURSDAY NIGHT? T listens for a moment.
YES? GOOD. 'TANK YOU CONSTABLES PINOCCHIO UND JIMMINY. GOOD CO-OPERATION FROM DER TESTIMONY VERIFICATION UND ETHICS DIVISION ZERE.
ASS YOU VILL BE AWARE, I AM SOON TO BE TAKING SIX WEEKS LEAF FOR LANCASHIRE CONSTABULARY'S DIVERSITY REPROGRAMMING, UND SO I VILL BE UNAVAILABE FOR SIEGE UND ARMED INCIDENTS FOR A WHILE, BUT' -cheers and laughter - ' I'LL BE BACK. ALRIGHT, ZAT'S IT, GET ROLLING UND....
HEY.HEY.HEY!
LET'S BE TERMINAL OUR ZERE.'

But figures also show that the force has difficulty in getting people from ethnic minorities to apply for jobs.

Pendle Hill. 08.35 AM.

Constables Stein and Oliver ignored the werewolf thrashing and howling in its cage in the locked and parked-up patrol van as they stumbled wearily up the hill .
Stein's shirt was already sweat-soaked and they were only one third of the way to the top. The hot sunny weather of an already bright summer's morning was ideal for this kind of pursuit as these were precisely the sort of conditions that would bring their target out into the open. Managing four seafood restaurants in Padstow hadn't prepared him at all for his new duties after he was swept up in Lancashire Constabulary's aggressive minorities recruitment drive, and Jamie's laddish smells-like-fish jokes were beginning to get on his nerves.
Winded, Stein rested on his haunches behind a dry stone wall.
There came a dry, tapping rattle from just up ahead as if from a pair of skeletal hands typing out Morse code on coconut shells, and then an electronic humming started up as if powerful alien energies were being uploaded into an advanced weapon system. Oliver took a look through the binoculars but it took some time for his eyes which had been befuddled by ultra-smart stealth technology to pinpoint the wavering, silvery silhouette of the unearthly man-hunter crouched amongst scrubby hedging by the lane.
'He's one ugly mother fucker just as Gordon Ramsey said,' chirped the cockney super chef cheerfully. 'I don't know why the Chief Constable thinks so much of us though; nor why he wants celebrity chefs on his force anyway.'
Stein though for a while. 'I think it's scarcity value lad. Also who knows what it would be like if they ever gathered us together in the same place with Anthony and Delia and Ainsley and Nigella ? It'd guess something akin to 30 Days of Night with sun dried tomatoes and basil.'
'Unchecked, I suppose we are a bit of a headache to those in authority. Britain can only support half a dozen or so super-chefs without ruining what's left of the economy,' agreed Oliver, checking the magazine of his Heckler and Koch. 'Maybe he wants to thin our numbers a bit too and chasing this creature's his way of doing it.'
'That's just what I thought. The fewer we are, the higher the prestige for having us on his force.'
'You should have told him so at the passing-out parade then,' replied Oliver, lashing a grenade to his spear and smearing himself with Pendle's thick, heat-insulating mud.
'I did,' Stein muttered, notching a fire arrow onto his bowstring, 'I told him we aren't aspirins and we don't do this kind of work.'
As they crawled through gorse bushes and worked their way around the contour of the hill towards the skull-polishing invader, Stein ponded the likelihood of success even if they survived and captured it alive. Both predator and werewolf were intelligent enough in their own ways so training shouldn't be a problem , but persuading them to hand out parking tickets without killing anyone was going to be a real bitch.

A police authority report says the county constabulary aimed to recruit six per cent of staff from black and ethnic minority ethnic groups, but in fact recruited 6.5 per cent. And the target of recruiting 40 per cent female staff was exceeded as 40.5 per cent joined over the same period.

Towneley Park, Burnley.11.37 AM.

The Inspector stared down at his favourite detective ruefully.
He turned to the Chief Superintendent.
'She's got the biscuit Jack. I know she's got the biscuit. I saw her carrying the biscuit just a few minutes ago, and if we can get it to the Scenes Of Crime Officer quickly we'll have all the evidence we need to bring Mister butter-wouldn't-melt-in-his-mouth Fudd to court.'
'Jailing the Burnley Shredded Wheat Slasher will be a feather in your cap indeed Shrek,' agreed CS Sparrow; his head twitching sharply to the side with a barely-sane flash of oiled dreadlocks and brightly-painted Caribbean nut beads. 'The Chief Constable's never presided over a force that's brought an honest-to-God cereal killer to justice before.'
'Please don't blaspheme the Creator's name,' insisted the leggy, wide-jawed and very beautiful blonde woman standing with them.
'Apologies, Detective Sergeant. I forgot that your people are deeply religious.'
'Perhaps if I gave her a tummy-rub, I could persuade her to show us where she buried it?' mused Shrek aloud. 'What do you think, Lassie? Nice tummy rub and when you've shown us the biscuit we can take you over to meet Gromit if you like?' He moved to stroke the sniffer dog who was newly-promoted to plain-coat detective.
'And don't treat females as pets and playthings either,' added Caprica Six crossly in her Canadian-Cylon accent.

But although 20.8 per cent of application packs were sent out to black and ethnic minority individuals, only 12.2 per cent of the packs were returned.
County councillor Tony Jones said in the report: “The difficulty is getting black and ethnic minority candidates to apply. “Once they do apply they tend to do rather well compared to other groups.

The abandoned Nostromo Chippy and Kebab-house, Darwen. 17.48 PM.

'Well they're black alright Ellen - but can they control angry football crowds?' asked her superior officer.
The tall woman officer looked down at the squirming metallic things as they swarmed and wriggled and chittered in an armoured glass confinement pen inside a converted deep-fat fryer. 'Listen sir, Burnley FC's in the Premier League this season by a sheer fluke and everyone expects them to be beaten in nearly every game and humiliated in most of them and relegation back down to the Championship's all-but inevitable from day one. Riding herd on twenty thousand drunken and disappointed Dingles once a fortnight as they've staggered onto the streets after nineteen disastrous home to May is going to be no picnic.' She gazed into the pen as the rapidly-growing armoured creatures writhed like braided coils of polished coal and shot out needle-toothed inner mandibles from inside long, curved, eyeless heads.''We'll need force and lots of it for Operation Turf Out and these are the special constables who can supply that, so please don't second-guess me sir and let me do my job. I've gone to no end of trouble and some personal sacrifice to make this work.'
The Assistant Chief Constable stared at her questioningly.
'I meant I've actually spilt blood for this operation,' she explained, acidly.
'I'm sorry Ripley. I had no idea about that,' the ACC apologised.
'That's alright sir. It's just something I had to get off my chest.'

“We have a disappointing level of black and ethnic minority police community support officers in the constabulary, with only three per cent, and the Minorities Recruitment Team is taking active steps to address the issue.” Meanwhile the number of sergeants remained constant at 13 and the number of inspectors rose from five to six.

There is still only one black or ethnic minority chief inspector.

Senior Officers' Briefing Room adjacent to the office of the Chief Constable. Lancashire Constabulary Headquarters. 19.06 PM

'And in conclusion, though it's too early to show that this programme has improved the quality of actual policing in Lancashire, it is possible to demonstrate that Lancashire Constabulary already has the most diverse staffing of any major police service in England,' finished the Deputy Assistant Chief Constable.
'We've got him! We've got him!' cried the Chief Constable as he burst into the room, leading a short, wavy-haired man in a trenchcoat past the conference table. 'Let me introduce you to Inspector McLeod, lately of New York.' The newcomer inclined his head at the very much younger men and women of the Senior Management Team.
'McCloud, as in the the famous New Mexico detective who did so much to clear up crime despite the cynical, demoralized and weary police of New York City in the 1970s?' asked Head Six from inside the Deputy Assistant Chief Constable's fevered and libidinous imagination.
'Inspector McLeod is an internationally renowned antiques expert,' explained the Chief Constable to all present; real or imaginary, 'Who specialises in identifying ancient weapons: especially swords.' He went on: 'In terms of diversity, he will be absolutely the jewel in Lancashire's crown.'
'Helping with SOCOs with forensics in stabbing incidents, I suppose?' asked the ACC, rather doubtfully.
'No, no! Think man: think! Minorities is the name of the game here - minorities! And what better or greater or more prestigious minority could this or any other county police service have than an individual who's unique?' He looked around at his deputies and assistants proudly. 'And I'm sure that you'll all agree that as uniqueness goes, being immortal by avoiding decapitation is pretty damned unique!'
'There can be only one,' affirmed Connor McLeod.

Dxn v Dck Grn

This makes sense – if you’ve been living in New Labour Britain for twelve years and you have already come to love Big Gordie and his minions.

POLICE will be sending crime prevention advice to residents by text message in the next few days as part of a new scheme.

Messages will be sent by bluetooth to mobile phones in areas across Lancashire where burglaries have taken place.

evnng al

Messages will include warnings to make sure doors and windows are locked and houses are secure.

wtch ot thr’s bglar abt

Officers will be using the novel method to highlight to residents, important information about home security and police hope they will remind people about the importance of keeping properties locked, especially during the night.

tbh, U gt 2 stay awake on hot nites or steem indrs

This comes as part of Operation Julius, a countywide campaign to reduce burglaries in Lancashire.

rofl

Chief Inspector Damian Darcy…

as in Prd N Prjdc ffs?!

lol

…said: “These messages should act as a wake-up call to residents

‘By ‘eck, Gladys, it’s t’mobile phone machine sending me a text message. Can there be trouble at t’mill, or is some gormless pie-muncher trying to wake me up an’ me on earlies an' all?’

… reminding them to make sure their doors and windows are locked and that their houses are secure.

Because we don’t want to return to the bad old days when such measures were famously unnecessary, now do we? That would require: policing (with backup for arresting officers instead of War and Peace form-filling), actual punishment, judgmentalism, judgment, and judges. And no way that’s going to happen…

“In the summer, and particularly due to the very warm weather, we know that people have a tendency to leave windows and doors open, leaving them vulnerable to burglars.

“These open doors and windows are invitations to a burglar.

Women who dress sexily are just asking for it, aren’t they? Same deal for property owners.

rite?

In over a third of all burglaries, thieves don’t have to break in because people have left windows and doors unlocked.

Fair enough. We’ll make it hard for them – if the authorities will make it hard for the others who do have to break in.

dnt hld yr brth

“Getting a text message from the police as you settle down for the night, telling you that a burglary may have occurred in your area and asking you if you have made sure your windows and doors are secure will definitely make people sit up in bed, think and take action.

Such as introducing the Men’s freestyle Nokia-throwing to the Lancashire Games this summer, or adding to the incidence of domestic incidents round about the time when marital cocoa is allowed to cool down.

Lancashire lads don’t just brush their teeth and take their boots off to hear from Plod, let me tell you.

“If a burglary occurs officers will be deployed to that area to prevent further offences.

Catchy, isn’t it: not catching? D’you think it might catch on – not catching?

"As part of their patrol plan these text messages will be sent out.

“The text messages will point out that burglary in Lancashire is at its lowest in 35 years and we want to keep it that way.

jj

Residents have a crucial part to play.”

As victims, it seems.

Mnd hw U go

More fun n from TJ.AT and Operation Julius from our archives here.

Drag Act. Hair net. 5-0.

Sweet holy Mother of Kermit!

Have the Muppets been officially declared the new aristocracy to rule over us wisely and firmly but kindly? Or is the following in fact not at all a really, really stupid idea?

Top cops visit burglars in Ferret City.

Daaa..da-da dah!

The story you are about to read is true.

Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent, if any.

My name’s Monday. I carry a club. I’m a cop.

Dah..da daaa-da!

EAST Lancashire’s top cops have paid personal visits to the area’s most prolific burglars as part of a month-long crack-down on crime.

July 5, 9.21 am. Lancashire Police HQ.

I took a patrol car and drove the brass from downtown into the dark heart of Ferret City’s Lower East Side. Riding along was an exchange-placement officer on a PR junket for City Hall – a shapeless, smiling foreigner and a distant relative of the Frenchman who wrote Magic Roundabout.

Already I knew it was gonna be a bad day.

Finally convincing the brass that, yes, the seatbelt and smoking regulations applied above the rank of Detective Sergeant, I took the fast and dirty route up the Barnoldswick Road, past Charlie Wong’s Racetrack; second home to Ferret City’s biggest dreamers and the final resting-place of its slowest greyhounds – also the graveyard of many a Friday wage packet and many more marriages to women called Vera.

Pausing only to spend fifteen minutes going around Ferret City’s award-winning counter-clockwise one-way traffic system with its ACPO-approved traffic-calming measures, we were soon in the rotten heart of East Lancashire’s Red Zone; the Merdbeck Estate.

Daaa..da-da dah!

Superintendent Buddy Kowalski and Chief Inspector Myron Napolitano delivered warning letters to five of the area’s most persistent burglars who operate across Blackburn, Darwen, Hyndburn and the Ribble Valley yesterday.

July 5, 9.59 am. 42 Anglezarke Moor Lane. Merdbeck Estate. Ferret City

‘Intel says this one’s a real hard nut,’ growled Kowalski, ‘A real low-life shyster, pimp, pusher, fence, trellis, ornamental hedge, water feature and grafter named Leonardo ’Lenny the Ring-Tailed Lemur Romano. ’

I wondered if the Intel guys had been into the evidence locker again with the Sarah Lee Cookie Dough and were even now ordering two eighteen–inch everything-included meat-feast pizzas apiece from Mohammed ‘Mo the Cheese’ Khan’s takeaway and fast food bar on Corporation Street.

‘Listen Monday,’ Kowalski went on, ‘This time I don’t want you staring and the ceiling throughout the whole interview and pretending to be an actor shadowing us for the day. You hear?’

Intel were on form. There’s nobody in all of Lancashire called Leonardo Romano but Kevin McFall was at the address alright: in an unornamented council flat with its National Collection of flat-screen TVs, but his name wasn’t on the letter so it was impossible to serve him with the paper.

Not that he needed more – he had an ASBO for every one of those giant TVs but not a single receipt.

The Frenchman smiled as we left to the musical accompaniment of McFall’s untouchable laughter.

Daaa..da-da dah!

Twenty-five others who form the ‘top 30’ burglars in Lancashire have been swooped on by senior officers from other police divisions.

Geographic inspectors across the county will also be paying a visit to their area’s most troublesome offenders.

July 5, 10.47 am. Flat 3, 67 Darwen Road. Merdbeck Estate. Ferret City.

It’s not easy to like people in a place whose very name conjures up images of squirming translucent things evolving in the primordial soup but you’re grateful for the lack of hospitality in Darwen Road where the kitchens are never used for cooking - unless you count unwrapping kebabs or heating up the wrong end of spoons.

‘You coming out of there, O’ Brannigan?’ yelled the kneeling Napolitano through the broken letterbox of the apartment. Napolitano was smarter than the average skateboarder though his meteoric rise through the police ranks had been slow in the first couple of years when he had actually attended monumental stone carving classes. There’s a good side and a bad side to the brass learning about the existence of the Internet, but one quick glimpse at Wikipedia’s disambiguation facility and he was on his way to higher places.

‘We no understan’, copper,’ came a muffled cry from within. ’You got warrant?’ inquired a pseudo-Polish voice of the ball-of-fur that I’ve written down on numerous reports since his grade school truancy days and spelled as Gary Butler, but who I call neither ‘Gary’ nor ‘Bulter’.

Not in the recesses of what remains of my soul.

‘Well, no, actually, I don’t have a warrant as this isn’t really an investigation as such. It’s just that we’re onto you O’Brannigan, we know all about your light-fingered ways, and if you try to pull any heists in my town, I’ll jolly well come down hard on you, like.-

‘-like a ton of social workers? Public defenders? Police brutality complaints?

If you’ve got anything on me, then kick in the door and come get me, but otherwise, go ‘way now. I’m busy with my bitches.’

‘That went well,’ beamed Napolitano on the way down 67 Darwen Road’s needle-tinkling stairs as I made a mental note to cross Criminology Degree off my Amazon wish-list.

The French guy just smiled again, and scribbled in his little grey book.

Daaa..da-da dah!

Chief Inspector Napolitano, who is leading the operation in Eastern Division, said: “Burglary in Lancashire is at its lowest in 35 years, but we want to keep it that way and this is just one of many tactics aimed at disrupting the activities of our most prolific burglars.

This type of crime is iconic and has an adverse impact on public confidence, not only to victims, but to the wider community.”

July 5, 12.16 am. Case, Bag and Cash Trading Inc. Ecclestone Munitions Industrial Estate. Ferret City.

‘Icons…Icons. L’yet me see. ‘Lyet me see…’ said Kiselev as we stood gormlessly in his pawn shop right after Chief Napolitano had explained Lancashire’s brilliant new anti-crime strategy to him.

The fence wandered off, chuckling, into the back of his shop that I knew contained half the stolen goods in Lancashire. There was a keyboard tapping sound as username and passwords were deleted and contacts broken but it meant nothing to the brass; I’d recently had to explain to Kowalski that login wasn’t a Russian surname.

Kiselev returned. ‘So sorry, gentlemens,’ he smiled, wiping tears from empty, satisfied eyes, ‘But I haff no icons. I got many stuffed animals y’and also plasma screen televisions like new, y’and also very large collection of Hannah Montana merchandise from this poor teacher you arrest by accident last week and release without charges. Also I got much nice new house furnishings and ornaments from MP now spending time wit’ h’yis researcher family before election but no icons, unfortunate.

You say there is much house-breakings in Ferret City, officers; despite the lowest crime since thirty years, God be thanked? I know nothing of such.’

‘Well just you keep an eye out for suspicious characters coming in here, Mister Kiselev,’ said Napolitano, as Kowalski eyed a silk evening gown and silver fox stole longingly.

‘Sure will, y’inspector. Glad to help polices always. Y’and if you is having difficults with forensic evidencs for this one crime or that one, SOCKO budget low and no overtimes, you be giving me a call da? Haff friend in National DNA Database from old days.’

‘Why that’s very public spirited of you, Mister Kiselev,’ put in Kowalski as he put down something silk and spangled with diamante with obvious regret.

The Frenchman met my eyes on the way back to the squad car as he muttered into a pocket mike.

There are a million stories in the City of Pigeons.

Daaa..da-da dah!

.“There are a small minority of people responsible for committing the majority of burglaries.” The message to them is simple: we know who you are, we know where you live, and if you continue to commit crime, you will be targeted.”

The warning letters are the first phase of Operation Julius, a campaign aiming to reduce burglaries across Lancashire.

Other aspects to be employed will involve filming suspects as they go about their day-to-day lives.

Superintendent Kowalski said: “We want burglars to know we are watching them.

“Most intitatives are to counteact a problem, but we have the lowest crime rates for 35 years and we want to keep it that way.”

He added: “It’s not often you get a Chief Inspector and a Superintendent knocking on people’s doors.“

But we know the impact these people have on the community and we want to show them we’re not messing about.“

They won’t like getting these warnings, or being watched.

“But it’s their choice. If they stop offending, they won’t have to worry.”

July 5, 15.32 am. 9 Tockholes Walk, Merdbeck Estate. Ferret City.

Sharon Plank was a bust.

Even her bust was a bust: despite years of work the twin towers of the former Miss East Lancashire and The Blackburn Intelligencer’s Playbloke Supplement centrefold Ferretgirl of the Month for October 1996 has seen better days. One of those better days had apparently been 9/11.

‘Listen copper,’ she sneered as Kowalski handed her a threatening letter from the Lancashire Constabulary (into which I was fairly sure was folded a hastily-scrawled note requesting the name of her plastic surgeon and the address of her costume suppliers), ‘I don’t know nothing about no burglaries.’ She scratched under her hair-net alluringly.

‘What’s this? You hassling my wife?’ rumbled my old pal Terry Dean Reynolds as he emerged from a back room that was filled with well-thumbed law books and purely decorative Housing Benefit claim forms full of imaginative names and identities for his amateur dramatic society nights down at the Overspill Refugee Centre.

‘You’re always round here bothering us, and we never done nothing’ - except that one time. Which was self-defence.

You never get pictures or forensics or hire lawyers from anywhere but Ferret City U who couldn’t spot a walk-away technicality if it bit them on the arse. There’s never going to be enough filth on the street when you’re always in the station house doin’ paperwork or away on diversity courses or poncin’ around with the communities. So I’m laughing at your Operation Julius which you’ll never have the manpower to follow through or the overtime to back up.

You ought to get out more year in: year out an’ spend some money on beat coppers like the old sod who always put my Dad in nick.

So you get out an’ don’t let the door hit you on the arse as you go. An’ take that Frog bastard with you.’

Kowalski beamed with delight at this last remark.

‘That’s racial harassment, Mister Reynolds, and we know how to deal with that kind of thing in my town.’

Kowalski turned to the Frenchman who was now stroking his Zebedee moustaches and jumping up and down like he was on a spring.

‘Book ‘em Danot,’ he said.