The Criminal Mind – Part Two

Also over the weekend in Manchester, three paintings were stolen from the Whitworth Art Gallery, worth an estimated four million pounds between the three of them.

Less than 24 hours later, they were found “hidden” in a tube behind a public toilet, less than 200 metres from the gallery. Now, seriously, what the hell is happening when a) the police don’t even search a radius of 200metres froma crime scene, and b) what kind of chucklehead leaves £4m worth of painting outside in a cardboard tube? In Manchester, for fuck’s sake – rain capital of the UK.

Not exactly the Einstein of the criminal world, obviously.

UPDATED : According to another source, the entire thing was done to illustrate the lack of security at the gallery, rather than to steal the artworks for profit. However, they may still be damaged due to last night’s rain.

Meanwhile, back in Kansas

Ananova has pictures of the world’s most expensive shoes. Platinum thread, 642 rubies, based on Dorothy’s ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz.One million quid. The world is insane.

The Criminal Mind

Sometimes you just have to decide that people are simply too stupid to remain free.

About 5 o’clock this morning, there were the various sounds of a car being raced through the back streets, including screeching tyres, thrashed engines, and rapid journeys through the gearbox – sometimes even managing to connect with a gear for a while. In the end this car came belting down my road, screeched to a halt slap bang in the middle of the crossroads (more by luck than judgement, I suspect, in light of the later happenings) followed by doors opening, and running feet. Yup, “joy”-riders, or as they’re known now , TWOCers .

Two of the car’s occupants ran away – no idea if they were caught or not. But two decided – even with the police car bearing down on them at a rate of knots – to stand outside their mates house and use the patented Mancunian Fuckwit technique to get their mate to wake up, open the door to his house and let them in, so they can look like the sweet innocent little bastards darlings they so obviously really are. I should point out at this time that the “Mancunian Fuckwit” technique relies not on anything sane like doorbells, or knocking on the door to be let in, but instead consists of standing on the path outside the house, and whistling to get the occupant’s attention. To my knowledge, this method has never gained results within ten minutes, and at 5am you can normally be betting on at least double that.

Needless to say, the two gormless little twats were promptly arrested, bounced off the bonnet of the police car while being handcuffed, and taken away.

United Against Racism – Manchester Apollo
RDB, Chumbawumba, Uncut, Alabama 3

Organised by UNISON and the TUC to mark the “no them and us” campaign, this event was always going to be a bit impressive. It was preceded by a march through Manchester (which I admit I didn’t attend) and the tickets themselves cost the princely sum of £6. For four bands.

The first band on stage were RDB (Rhythm, Dhol and Bass), a collective I’d never heard of before. It’s always been a surprise in many ways that bhangra has never caught on with the mainstream music world, particularly those who go clubbing and so on – the beats and rhythms always seemed perfect for clubbing. But I suppose that in it’s own way the music world is as racist as any other – but I hope it will change in the end. RDB were bloody good, and worked the crowd well. It set the mood for the night.

Surprisingly, next up were ChumbaWumba – I’d thought they would be headliners, or one off, not second in line. Still, no complaints for me. I’ve liked Chumbawumba for years now, and had seen them a couple of times before, but not in at least ten years. It seems to be the month for revisiting old bands, having seen Sisters of Mercy, and seeing Erasure in a couple of weeks time, as well as the B-52s (until they cancelled) and now Chumbawumba. As well as performing their best known track, “Tubthumping”, they included several older ones including “Mouthful of Shit” and “Bigmouth Strikes Again” – continuing to get the crowd involved and enjoying the gig. It was a joy to see them again – and scary to know that none of them have really changed all that much at all.

The third band were Uncut. They’re still veyr new to the music scene, and from the music they showcased tonight, deserve to go on and be huge. The crowd loved them, the material went down really well, and they had the confidence to carry it all off smoothly too. In honesty I don’t know how many concerts they’ve done before, but this one will hopefully just be the start of great things to come.

And finally, after an exceptionally long pause, the headliners – Alabama 3. Regular readers will already know I adore Alabama 3 and have done now since the first single, back iin 1996. (And realising that they’ve been going for seven years already is enough to make me feel very, very old!) In the last six months they’ve gone from tiny 300 person venues up to 750-1000 person venues, and now to the Apollo, a 2,500 – 3000 seater. And the transition hasn’t affected them at all – it’s just better lit, with more room to move around (well, when the mic lead isn’t tangled around the stand and allows them to, anyway) and that’s really the sole difference for them. When they finally hit the stage, they hit it running, introduced by one of Stephen Lawrence‘s relatives – apt, in the week that was the tenth anniversary of his death. Starting off with “Let The Caged Bird Sing”, they proceeded to blow the roof off the venue in the way that their fans recognise.

All in all, an absolutely stunning evening – I’d have paid treble the ticket price, both for the cause, and to see the bands, so it was well worth it. I’ve been lucky – three absolutely sensational concerts in a row – I hope the run continues for a while.

Zen and the art of timing

It now looks like I was lucky to see Sinead O’Connor at the Massive Attack concert a couple of weeks ago. According to reports, she’s retiring from the music world (again) so the guest appearances at the Manchester Massive Attack gigs may have been her last live performances.

Celebrate that special day

Fark.com held a competition for people to submit ideas for google to do to their logo on special days. It takes a while to load, but it’s worth it- some made me laugh out loud.

Hen night

I tell you, you do get some funny looks being the only man out with eleven women on a hen night. Thankfully it wasn’t the entire “L-plates, false cocks and dodgy veils” type of event (not that that would’ve stopped me, of course), but instead turned out to be really good fun.

I’m not sure if I qualified as “honorary girlie” or “token bloke”, but either way, it’s been a damn good night. Food at Dmitri’s (Greek cuisine), followed by a night of partying at Copacabana. And yes, I wish I could get the horrendous Barry Manilow track out of my head, but there we go. Turns out Copacabana has been there for about 20 years now, and I can’t believe I’ve never been before. Salsa, drink, excellent musicm and an atmosphere that doesn’t consist of every man being out on the pull. Instead, it’s just full of people who want to dance, and love the music. Long may it last.