This morning, I rang Birmingham Magistrates Court to ask what had happened at yesterday’s session. They told me the suspect had been given a 12 month community order and is required to do 200 hours of paperwork / community service. I’m very happy with the outcome.

I know the thief’s name, but I’m not going to announce it, even though it’s what he deserves. If the offender or anyone he knows reads this, you know what he did. He’s a thieving tosser and scum-sucking maggot - and that’s putting it politely - who committed a crime and has been suitably punished for it.

Everything went fine until we got to the cinema. Chris decided to come with us, but as he was in his car, he got there first. When Dad and I got to the desk, with no sign of Chris, we decided to get our tickets without waiting. We were slightly late, as it was 1900, but I figured we would only miss some adverts. Getting to the counter, I took my (new) purse out (which contained £130 in cash), removed the Cineworld card, and laid the purse down on counter with my left hand over it. Asking for a ticket to see the 1850 performance of District 9, the ticket clerk told us the performance had actually started at 1840. Twenty minutes late would mean the performance had already started, and I didn’t want to miss the start of it. As Dad and I were going back and forth a bit, trying to decide whether to go and see a later performance rather than rush into the earlier one, my phone rang. As my Cineworld card was in my right hand, I answered the phone with my left hand, taking the hand off my purse. It was Chris, and as I didn’t want to hold up the queue, Dad and I moved away from the counter… and I completely forgot about my purse.

Chris said, “Look behind you.”
I looked behind me, no sign of him.
“No, up here,” he said, and we spotted him at the top of the escalator. “C’mon, the film is starting,” he said.
“No, it’s too late,” I said, “We’re gonna miss it. Come down here, we’re gonna see a later showing.”

He grumbled a bit but came downstairs, and talked us round into seeing the earlier showing. We rushed back to the desk to get tickets, but it was too late; as the film had started, the showing had dropped off the computers and the ticket guy couldn’t sell them to us. Chris argued that we could be given tickets to the later showing and just go into the earlier one. I told him to shut up, he had a Cineworld card too and it wasn’t going to cost him anything to change. He muttered about complaining, which I said he could do later he if really wanted to, and we got our tickets for the later screening and moved away. I went to put my card back in my purse, and realised it was missing. Cue panic. I started emptying out my pockets and bag, looking for the purse, with no luck. I scoured the floor, swearing “Oh god, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” and went back to the counter to ask the ticket guy if I’d left it there. No sign of it.

Next stop, the security guy. He got on the radio straight away, asking other members of security to check the toilets, and he checked the floor and the street and bins directly outside. Still no sign of it. I knew I’d had it when I went up to pay, as I’d taken the card out, so said it had to have been taken. He asked security to check the CCTV footage whilst I paced around some more. Couple of minutes later, he said that CCTV had been reviewed, and that I didn’t put anything down on the counter. He said he was going to show me the footage, and we were taken upstairs. Dad and I went into the security room whilst Chris waited outside, and sure enough, the footage showed that I didn’t leave anything on the counter. Only thing was, the security guys were looking at the footage of the second time we went to the counter. I explained we’d been up there twice, and asked them to rewind it to the first time. They did, and sure enough, it showed me walking up to the counter and putting the purse down next to the chip and PIN machine, faffing around for a while, then answering my phone and walking away, leaving it there.

Next up to the counter was a tall guy and a heavily pregnant blonde girl. He noticed the purse, flipped it over, looked straight at the security camera for a brief second, then swiped it and walked away. Oh, I was FURIOUS. So furious all I could do was swear loudly, “Fucking…!” Words failed me otherwise. The footage went on to show that the man and woman wandered over to the popcorn stand, then walked right into a film.

The security guys were stars. They were able to use the computers to determine what film the guy had bought tickets for, and therefore what screen he was in. They sat us down and got me a bottle of water. My mouth was SO dry, and I swigged it whilst pacing back and forth angrily, telling Dad what I wanted to do to the scum that had taken the purse. Security went into the screen looking for the guy, and on the first attempt, couldn’t find him. They called the police and checked again, and on the second attempt spotted him and removed him and the blonde girl from the screen. Apparently, he straight away said that he knew what they wanted, and handed over the purse. He said he had planned to hand the purse back in after the movie. One of the staff members brought it over to me, and asked me to check that everything was in there. Absolutely nothing was missing. I was so relieved. Unbelievably so.

Security said they had called the police, and whilst we were waiting around, they noticed that I was circling closer to the guy, and asked me to go and sit down in a separate area. Would I have done anything to him? No, I’m pretty sure not, with all the security guys there, and knowing it would be stupid and likely classed as assault. They wanted me away from there though, which was fair enough.

Two policemen turned up shortly afterwards, and one of them took a logbook statement from me, whilst the other handcuffed the guy. I could see him from where I was sitting, and watched him after the policeman took my statement. He never looked in my direction once. I asked the policeman what would happen, would the cinema prosecute the guy? He said that was up to me, as the guy hadn’t committed a crime against the cinema, he’d committed one against me. I said, “Hell yeah, I want this guy prosecuted, he stole my fucking purse!”

A bit later, transport turned up to take the guy to the station. A very tall sergeant came over to tell me that I would need to give a longer statement if I was prosecuting. Two female police offers turned up, and one of them took me into the CCTV office to take my statement, whilst the other took a statement from Security. I developed one hell of a headache - stress induced, no doubt! Signing off the statement, I asked the police officer what happened next. She said that depending on whether the guy had any prior record, he might be let off with just a caution, or it might go as far as Crown Prosecution (i.e. court). I was given a witness/victim information sheet with a crime reference number and contact details on, and that was it for me.

The cinema gave us updated tickets for District 9, which by that point was for the 2110 showing. Film was good, although headache persisted!

Back home at midnight, I told Mum the whole story. I think if I’d not got the purse back, she would have felt even more sick than me - no doubt, given that £120 of the money in the purse was what she’d given me for my birthday, and the purse was brand new, and one she’d also bought for me.

I got very, very lucky indeed. Lucky that the security guys were so good. Lucky that the CCTV system was so good. Lucky that the guy who took the purse didn’t just walk right out of the cinema with it, which is what a lot of people would have done. Not many people get that lucky. It was a great end to a very stressful evening, one that could have gone down in history as my worst birthday ever.

It reminded me of what my Dad said when the film came out. He was born in Limerick in 1949. His mother, my Nan, was born and lived in Limerick in the mid-1920s and 1930s. Dad had asked Nan if growing up in an Irish Catholic household in that time period was really as bad as it was made out to be in Angela’s Ashes. Nan said that, no, it was exaggerated. She too grew up in a poor household with many siblings, and whilst it was difficult, it wasn’t that terrible.

Nan related a story of an incident when she was a child. Her father, who, like many Irish labourers, liked his drink, would on occasion hide money from her mother, so that he could use it at a later date for alcohol. He assumed that his wife wouldn’t notice, but wives can be sharp like that. This of course frustrated her no end, but he was the breadwinner of the family. Then one day whilst he was out at work, she found his stash of money, which was a not-insubstantial amount. She immediately took it and used it to buy sensible things - food and clothing. When her husband got home, he of course found his stash missing. I’m sure he noticed the food and clothing, but because he’d deliberately hidden it, there was no way he could say anything to his wife. I can just imagine my great-grandmother’s satisfaction at her husband’s inability to do anything about it. I got the impression the men were tough, and the women even tougher in those days.

Mr Dail was my class teacher at primary school in 1984/85. He was an American ex-pat who was a rather unconventional teacher. To me, as a 9 year old, he seemed like an older guy, but I doubt if he was any more than his late 40s. Mr Dail didn’t stick to the standard syllabus for a class of 9 year olds. Amongst other things, he taught us the names of cloud formations, introduced us to slow worms, showed us how to make butter, brought his beautiful rough collies, Ola and Tubby, into class and let us walk them on the school field (a reward for finishing work), and, perhaps most interesting of all, gave out US Air Force rank pins for academic achievement. Where he got this ready supply from, I don’t know, but I was immensely proud when I was awarded a Staff Sergeant pin with 4 stripes. Only a few students in the class had a rank this high, so I was really very pleased with myself, in the way only a nerdy little kid can be.

One day in early summer, as we were heading back to class after a PE lesson, one of my classmates tripped on a slightly raised paving stone. Down she went, and it was immediately obvious that she’d broken her arm. Whilst an ambulance was called for her, the rest of us were herded into class. The following week she returned with her arm in a cast, and Mr Dail made a big show of awarding her with a 6 stripe Master Sergeant pin for bravery. I remember being immensely jealous at the time, thinking to myself that I’d studied really hard to get my Staff Sergeant pin, and all she’d done was break her arm.

I still have my Staff Sergeant pin knocking around somewhere, boxed up with a load of stuff in the loft, if I remember right. I hadn’t thought about it in years, but I’m tempted to go looking for it.

Back in 1995, whilst at University, I played a lot on a particular online game, a text based Multi User Dungeon. The servers and staff were based in Germany, and a large majority of the players were German, but it was an English language MUD. The staff decided a meet up would be a really cool idea, and so set a date in October for a weekend get together in Cologne. I decided to go, and booked a train ticket to take me there via the Channel Tunnel - Cardiff to London, London to Brussels, Brussels to Cologne. I was invited to stay with one of the MUD staffers, a guy called Frank. He would meet me at the local S-Bahn train station when my train got in at around 8pm. Things are never that easy though, right?

I got to Brussels fine. I even had time to get something to eat before my connecting train to Cologne. The train to Cologne itself, though - that was a different story. There were massive delays en route. Just after passing through Aachen, the train stopped. And waited. And waited. By the time I finally got to Cologne, it was 11pm. Problem was, I didn’t have Frank’s phone number. I just had to hope that he was still at the S-Bahn station. No such luck. I got there, and the place was absolutely deserted. No staff, no other passengers. Large car park, completely empty. Close to midnight.

I studied German up to the age of 14. The only sentence I fluently remembered was, ‘Wie komme ich am besten zum Bahnhof, bitte?’ Given I was already AT the train station, not particularly helpful! Only one thing I could do - I went to the nearest payphone and dialled 112, emergency services. The operator answered, and I crossed my fingers and said, ‘Do you speak English?’ Someone up there must have figured I needed a break, because thankfully, she did. I explained what had happened, and ten minutes later a police car turned up to take me to Frank’s house. I wished I did speak German, because the police officers gave him a very stern talking to when he answered the door!

I know that they say, ‘No news is good news’, which could also loosely be re-interpreted as ‘any news is bad news’, but this is ridiculous. We look back now at the 20th century and shake our heads sadly about things like the atrocities of the two World Wars, the Cold War, the Depression, AIDS, and the development of nuclear weapons, but there were also great things; like advances in science, technology and medicine, the space race and moon landings, and the development and expansion of telecommunications. What about the 21st century? Iraq. Afghanistan. SARS. MRSA. Global warming. Economy down turn. 9/11 and terrorism. Obesity. Poverty and disproportionate wealth. Multi-million divorce settlements.

When I try to think of the most memorable events in my lifespan - in my memory - the first one that springs to mind, possibly because it’s the biggest and most recent, is 9/11. Before that, the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, and the incessant, ridiculous, ceaseless controversy and conspiracy theories. Sure, I also remember things like the Berlin Wall coming down, the development of the world wide web, and strides in medicine and genetics, but they pale in comparison to recent events. At this rate, it’s not going to be the 20th century that people look back on with head shaking and regret. It’ll be the 21st.

The lower your score, the better, with 0 being a perfect eye for hues and shades, and around 1000 being the default (unordered) score. My best score was 12, with a few errors in the purple-blue spectrum.

THERE WERE WASPS IN MY WALL CAVITY. No amount of exclamatory punctuation can even come close to expressing my horror.

I shuddered back into the house and he got out his beekeeper’s protective clothing and powder poison canister and nozzle, and set to work. I watched from the (firmly closed) upstairs side window as a load of white coated wasps flew away. He also pulled down the visible part of the nest, told me that any wasps currently out foraging would return soon and get the poison on them too, and took a £48 cheque off me.

I didn’t go near the cupboard until this morning. Sure enough, the visible part of the nest is in pieces, and there’s a hole in the wooden backboard of the cabinet that the wasps must have eaten their way through to get into the wall cavity.

The pest control guy expressed his surprise that I haven’t seen any wasps in the house. I reckon they’re hiding in the loft. I’m never going up there again.

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