Stop Thief!

I sustained injuries on Paddys Day when a gravel path pulled me face down into it and vomited on me.

I am DOOMED. Not been robbed yet.

I don't understand stealing cell phones. In the U.S. they are given out free at gas stations and 7-11s. Are they valuable in the UK?

exactly, which is why people who hurt or KILL others for their possessions are the scum of the earth. if god forbid i had been that woman, of course i would have run after them, not with a view to getting my stuff back but with a view to punching them in the face whilst screaming the words "HOW DARE YOU DO THIS TO ME!" surely you're not saying Liz Sherlock more or less got what she deserved because she cared too much about her possessions?

but thats the most annoying part of this sort of thing, you can't do anything about it really. bus full of people and noone even bothered to help me.

anyway, yes, twice so far in my life i have been approached with a view to being divested of burdensome possessions, viz:

a: in 1987 i wuz returning from the mean fiddler and the texas phreak-core stylings of THee BuTTHoLe SuRFeRS. Ten yards from my own Graham Road front door, a nevy young fellow suddely lurched in front of me, one hand held behind his back. "Give me money," he said: "I have a knife." Haven't got any, I said: thinking, if you have a knife, you don't hide it surely. "What's in your bag?" Books. This was true: my shoulderbag was FULL of books. (Why, you ask, did I take a shulderbag of books to a Buttholes Surfers gig? Why, I snap back, are you asking me such damn fool questions...) He poked among the books, which were not to his taste. "What's in there?" I had my journo tape recorder, in a little spongebag. "Tape recorder. You're not having that. I man, I'd fight you for that." During all this he was just shaking, more and more and more. He was smaller than me, but quite wiry. I was weighed down by a stupid shoulderbag, full — for reasons I have perfectly adequately explained — of books. "OK, I need some money." I laughed at this point; I realised he was actually very very frightend, and that I was't. What d'you need the money for? "I live in [Wembley, or somewhere similarly godforsaken in the north-west] and I haven't enough to get home." OK, here's three pounds. He takes it, then grabs my hand with both his and pumps it up and down energetically. "You're cool man. Thanks. I'll get it back to you, I... " No you won't: just go home to Wembley. He is like a little puppy now. It is all I can do to stop myself ruffling his hair. He splutters more thanks than scampers off.
b: I have just seen Kraftwerk at the Brixton Academy in (I thin) 1992, with my sistah and her then-boyf, a . As we reach our car, pared in the Stockwell Road, a small kid — 14 at most — jumps in front of sistah's boyf and menaces him, with a (to-scale) tiny little gun. SB = native New Yorker, so is handing over his wallet before you can say, erm, knife. mark s = not so wise: "That's not a real gun," blurts he. Kid, crestfallen, lets gunbarrel waver vaguely between all three of us. SB shrugs, puts away his wallet, and all three of us turn and begin the process of ulocking and getting our car. As we drive off, I look back: kid is being dressed down by older teenager, very scornful and angry. I guess he just failed his Mugging Proficiency.

I have very mixed feelings about this second story. If a wallet is just stuff, not worth getting hurt for, well that goes double when the wallet is someone else's and the gun is pointing at them. I don't think my impulse was anything to do with courage, or swift judgment of character, or even dignity, really: I think it was more (my usual) intellectual self-regard. I was OUTRAGED that someone shd think that *I* was fooled by *that* piddly little toy. Of course I know zero about guns or gunsizes, real and fake. Ten years later, people are being shot in London, regularly, for much less. I think if the same thing happened, I would probably respond the same way. My sistah did split up with this boyf some years later, and he did kind of act a bit like a jerk at that time: but I think she wd have took it ill if he HAD been hurt or worse at the time because i haf a big mouth and no braneZoR. He was actually quite quiet in the car back to Hackney, except to say at one point: "I can't believe you did that. IT WAS PIOINTED AT ME!!" Becky said, "I know! It was hilarious!"

Tony Martin is in jail and a 16-year-old boy dead because of a chest of drawers. A 200-year old piece of wood.

We have to get out of this way of thinking that possessions matter. Because they don't.

"Being brave doesn't get you off the grave" (Larkin).

Everything I own is junk. Everything you own is junk. All possessions are junk. Why terminate your time on this planet, or someone else's time, for trinkets?

VCR? Just bloody well GIVE it to them if they're so desperate for it.

Jewellery? Don't make me laugh!

CD collection?

I would find sitting in a bare room with Laura infinitely preferable to sitting in a room, as I am, with books and records wall to wall, but which is still fundamentally empty.

People matter, like the Peace man said.

1. Newport Court off Charing X Road (where 'Steve's Records' is) c.1974. I was a bit of a greenhorn in the sense of my lack of familiarity with the West End. A slightly crazed-looking hippy type came up behind me and said he had a gun, and that I should hand over my money (which I did). He then asked, apparently with sympathy, if I had any money left for my bus/tube fare home. I said I did, whereupon he demanded I hand that over as well (which I did). I don't think I believed he had a gun even then, but I was too much of a frightened rabbit to do anything other than comply promptly with his every request.

2. Brixton Road 1985 (the night of the Live Aid concert). Having spent the evening at The Fridge, I was strolling northwards when a gang of youths grabbed me, threatened and punched me, and stole my money - luckily only about £5, but it meant I had to trudge all the way home to Stepney in the rain.

But hadn't Tony Martin been subjected to repeated harassment and break-ins? He didn't shoot the victim to protect furniture but because he felt under threat.

Whose side do you take on this whole Tony Martin business? Do you feel revulsed in the way that the Tory ambulance chasers immediately tried to turn him into a martyr for middle England? Or maybe, like me, you just sighed and thought "typical."

I'm still not sure myself.

No-one's side really. I sympathise with Martin because he was clearly provoked and probably felt genuinely desperate. OTOH the victim obviously didn't deserve to die for a youthful indiscretion.

i. Aged about 9, I was coming back from the sweetshop and some kid said "Give me your Curly Wurly" and I said no but gave him some crappy 1p sweet that I didn't even like very much instead

ii. Aged about 10, two kids in Peckham Rye Lane Superdrug weilded a craft knife at me and said "Give me 5p". I did.

iii. In the early hours of the 31st August 1997, aged 24, I was walking back from Clapton to my part of Hackney when I was accosted by two men outside the HSBC cashpoint. They told me withdraw money from my account, which I did, up to the maximum of £400. They ran off, I went home and called the police. The police came round to take details, had some conversation with a man in the street then told me Princess Diana had just died in a car crash. "You don't believe me, do ya? She 'as!" said on. " Well bang goes my chances of shagging her, eh?" said the other. It was an odd evening. I wrote a letter to my bank in my best legalese and got them to reimburse me for the cash.

I'm always surprised I don't get attacked more often. If I was a mugger I'd pick on me. Maybe it's the height. Or maybe mugging really isn't very common at all. When I was a student I hated students so much I almost wanted them to mug me. I figured we deserved it.

Sometimes the lack of an edit option on this board is a godsend...

Another pointer for those of you approached by muggers/assailants: act like a mental patient, it works. If you make barking noises at someone who's after you/your stuff, they'll think you're nuts and go away.

Anyway, on the way there this little kid starts talking to me and follows me to the shop, and says he'll wait for me (not in a threatening way. I also think I scared him by being honest and friendly, and using duck s' answer to "Bird or bloke?" ("Who's asking?" - I don't think he heard though). On the way back this kid (around 12, shaved ginger head) and his little friend (say 8) start talking to me, ask for a cigarette and bus fair home (I tell them to walk), then they ask for my phone (I thought I'd left it home to charge and told them this (it satisfied them). I discover later I did have it on me). He tries to put his hand in my pocket, I stop him, and he says "Don't try to be in charge, I could do that and there's nothing you could do" (I just fuXing stopped you, hello?). We walk to one of these bits of grass and he starts demanding "A quid for the bus". I say I don't have any cash, which I don't, and he starts getting forcible and I end up standing up on the bank (quite slippery), all the while attempting key fist with one key. He "punches" me, I barely notice (it felt like getting a light shove through a very heavy coatXor (I was wearing hoodie + t-shirt, and I am not hard)). He says "That was me left, now imagine m' right", and although still kind of scared I start grinning, partly cos some guy is coming around the corner. His little friend says "Let's go", they scarper, and I leg it the opposite direction and get the bus.

I'm still trying to work out who handled this most pathetically, him or me.

-- Tomas (agallah02...) (webmail), January 19th, 2002 8:00 PM. (link)

Oh shit, ignore that, that was for another thread on another webboard.

-- Tomas (agallah02...) (webmail), January 19th, 2002 8:00 PM. (link)