Six degrees of Tesco

Don’t worry this is not an anti Tesco rant. Went to the Old Swan branch tonight at the behest of my son who was supposedly starving to death.

 After doing the shop at the checkout I decided to ask the woman on the til for a replacement loyalty card and I happen to tell her that I needed the card as I’d been broken into  and she says “You don’t live on Kenny do ya?” to which I replied in the affirmative she then went on to tell me several of her friends had been done, on wait for it……Romer Road….but the Police had actually collared the thieving turds, who turned out to be kids or juveniles at least. Her friends were one of the other 20 or so people who have had their house screwed in my street.

Now at this point you need to start thinking about Gilbert and Sullivan, not the shor sharp shock of Willie Whitelaw, but making the punishment fit the crime.

By my rudimentary calculations they have done in the region of over £20,000 worth of thieving, this doesnt account for the repair costs, the police time, victim support, time off work, inconvenience, feeling crap about living here……it’s difficult to figure out what would be appropriate without goign down the Islamic route, a giant T branded or tattoed in their forehead, loss of a couple of fingers for starters.

What you can be sure of is the “punishment” dealt out first of all won’t make the victims feel any better and won’t stop these towrags going on to bigger and better crimes. It wont put them off.

The thing I hate most about this type of thing from this type of person is they stop me being a wooley liberal, bastards!

Kenny 0 Steve Faragher 1

With mixed emotions I have to say that Kenny is no more. Last night having decided to use “Extreme Prejudice” Kenny bought the big one and whilst grazing on some tinned crab was quickly dispatched.

The other thing is Kenny wasn’t a Kenny but Kennyetta. A small female brown rat, Rattus Norvegicus.

Ah well let’s just hope Kennyetta hasn’t left any little ones for me to have to deal with.

Crime abolished on Merseyside-or a rogue by any other name

Thief or occurgular you decide 

I got burgled a couple of weeks ago of weeks ago but to add salt in the wounds upon asking the police for a “crime number” for my insurance claim, I was told that they no longer issued crime numbers but istead gave out “occurrence” numbers.

So when does a crime stop being a crime and become an occurrence, probably when you’ve involved a focs group or a marketing company or  PR company who feel turning crimes in an everyday “ccurrences” will amke us all feel less violated and threatened…..er it hasn’t work folks.

Some more free suggestions:

Occurgulars for thieves,

Bizzies for Police

Occurrence facilitators more thieves

Occurrence recipients  Victims

 oh make your own up

Just how many places to get pissed does one area need

Take a look at the picture above and ask yourself “just how many places to buy boozedoes one area need”?

I’m wondering if more affleunt areas are so well endowed with boozers and Offies. In an economically depressed area like Kensington, where it’s so poor we dont even have a charity shop , boozers abound….

well we have to fritter away our hard earned  giros somewhere the pictures do not showt all the places to buy  booze as I couldnt be arsed walking all the way up to Kensington Fields (there’s two more offies and a two pubs up there).

Today I was out leafleting for the radio station and I must have seen at least half a dozen people walking along the street with a cans of ale in their hands, this included a woman pushng a baby wiht three other kids in tow. Now admittedly it was quite late in the day, about 10.45am, but what struck me even more is that the social acceptance of booze makes this problem invisible until and unless someone gets ill, starts a fight or kills someone in a  drunken rage.

It seems more rampant in areas like Kensington, the low low price and around the clock availability (Not drunk enough store testifies to that), the vicious circle of no work, cheap booze means people can just about get by and be pissed most of the time, blanking out the hopelessness of it all.

What’s happening to counter this situation-well it looks like not a lot, and the youngsters due to lack of provision and facilities means they are joining in the great Kensington Drinking Festival with gusto. Anyone who has been out on Prescot road or Kensington at night recently will know it’s turning into a bit of Zoo. It’s enought o drive you to drink.

The solution could be one of those “Freakonomic” things, i.e. the obvious cause and effect is not what you think, instead of harassing facility starved teenagers, setting up alternatives to the current vacuum, well shucks that shouldnt be too diffcult.

And for us pissed and alcoholic oldies instead of drinking ourselves to death then maybe giving us jobs as youth workers might be one idea, you know this might just work.

I have been teetotal for 12 and half years, how fucking “Look how high up on this bit of moral highground I fucking am” does that sound.

Kvfm’s Weblog

Kvfm’s Weblog

kenny the Rat 15 Steve Faragher 0-The Ratmernator

After over a week trying to catch Kenny the Rat, this morning I thought all my troubles were over.

I came down and the trap had been sprung, finally. This was after  leaving various types of rat attractive food in the trap, and filming with the help of an infra camera, Kenny looking into the trap, inspecting the trap, eating the bait at the front of the trap but not actually getting caught in the trap.

So the beast was captured, I decided to feed a piece of apple which it duly attacked with both paws and teeth, making the sort of noise you’d expect a pissed off rat to make.

I picked up the cage to take out into the yard and the rat decided enough was enough and squeezed through the half inch gap between the door and the cage, a bit lioke a scene from a rat remake of terminator 2 …….and off he went…….back into the settee, and off I went to work. 

So it starts all over again except this time if he doesnt give up by Saturday I am afraid I am going to have to use “extreme prejudice” as the CIA say, I will be buying “Big Nipper” rat trap.

So Kenny if you are reading this please give up before it gets too serious

Kenny the Rat 3 Steve Faragher 0

As you can see from the blurred image of Kenny inspecting the humane rat trap I put out last night, things have moved on a pace. Unfortunately I knew what the trap was for and I think “Kenny” did too, which is why he didn’t go into it and surrender to me.

Another couple of things, it deosnt look like a baby to me, it’s ripped a big hole in the bottom of my 2 seater settee and Kneale (my son not another rat) hss accidentally set the trap off. Happy days.

There’s a Rat in the kitchen, in fact he’s in the living room as well

Kenny the Rat
Sometimes you plan these blogs other times things just jump out at you and you feel compelled to write about them.

This happened to me yesterday. As a dutiful recycler and as it was “Recycle Wednesday” I decided I should pop my two rcycling boxes out, put the first one out no problem, the second one however was far more problematic.

As I got to the front door a small brown lump of brown paper fell out of the box, and hit the floor and then unusually for brown paper, it ran into the house, because dear reader it was a baby rat.

You can get down off the chair now, for as an ex rat pet owner, the little furry friends don’t freak me out. The problem was I had to get off to work, so the rat was left in the house, in the vain hope that the creature would find its’ own way out.

To find out whether he had escaped I left some bacon bits, and small pieces of cheese surrounded by flour on black card, and  when I came downstairs this morning all the food was gone…..and tons of footprints in the flour. Oh yeah I’ve decided to call him Kenny! The thing is he is far more threatening than some of the human rats which live in the area. (I was broken into again last week)

So if anyone has got any humane suggestions, (Pied Piper, etc) as I really dont want to kill the creature let me know. If there are anymore sightings I’ll keep you posted.

He didnt even leave me a tip!

Kensington Neighbourhood Centre Watch- number 2 02_09_07

Still no movement on site but according to the latest news on the Kensington Regeneration site all is well http://www.kensingtonregeneration.com/page.asp?pagekey=51,

No mention of the extra half a million quid which had to be sunk into the project to stop it going belly up. Still not sure of the actual amount New Deal has put in but I feel an FOI request coming on…..apart from the fire station I’m not really sure what community facilities are going to be there.

Also it seems they’ve lost an apartment (or flats as I like to call a flat a flat) going down from 51 to 50 even though the new plans will mean more flats rather that less, any guesses at the total number that will be built and the possible profit the development company will end up making should be sent on a postcard to the entire poplulation of Kensington, as it is after all profit made on the backs of their regeneration, we’ve only been waiting seven years for the centre afterall.

Finally and most worryingly I’ve just looked through the Liverpool City Council website and checked as to the progress of the planing application, but I can’t find one. The only one which references the site is for the conversion of the grade 2 listed building into flats http://www.liverpool.gov.uk/environment/planning/mvm_explorer.asp jsut type in prescot road

07L/0332

10-12 Prescot Road, Liverpool, L7

To carry out various alterations and works to existing building, in connection with conversion and extensions so as to form 4 no. two-bedroomed apartments with basement storage

no mention of the “Big One” though.