I am a tad pissed off this morning!

Ever since I got my luvverly wee Canon Digital Ixus about a year or so ago, I’ve been in the habit of stickin' it in my pocket everytime I leave the house while proclaiming "I mustn’t forget the Pepperami!" [My hilarious pun on 'Paparazzi' -Geddit?]. The missus regularly questions my Boy Scout like photographic prepared-ness with helpful comments such as "Why do you need to bring a camera to Asda?" or "What do you think you’ll find worth photographing on the way to the Post Office?" to which my standard reply has always been "Because the day I don’t bring it, Tony Blair will come skateboarding down the road in the nude with a tramp’s cock in his mouth and I’ll miss my chance to make a fortune!"<

So anyway, last night just as we’re leaving the house on our way into town for the usual Friday night all-nighter at Rockworld [AKA 'Cockworld'], I suddenly think "Oh. wait! The Pepperami is in my other jacket.." and take half a step back in through the door to get it, before further thinking "Oh sod it! I never take any photos at Cockworld anyway" and leaving the house without it.

You can see where this one is going, can’t you?

Fast forward to approx quarter-to-four in the morning. We leave 'Cockworld' and start walking home, when all of a sudden on the junction of Whitworth Street and Oxford Road there’s a wail of sirens, a screech of brakes and a police Range Rover swerves across the path of this big black four-wheel drive thingie. Out leap about four pigs in full body armour with guns pointed at the black 4WD, shouting "Get out of the fucking car! Get out of the car with your hands up!"

The car doors open and four half-caste blokes with shaved heads and wearing suits get out of the car with their hands in the air [like they don’t care!] and lie face down in the middle of the road, whereupon the cops handcuff them and start either feeling them up, or searching them for weapons [Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference!]

And while me and the missus were standing rubber-necking with a growing crowd of nightclub refugee spectators, where was my ever-fuckin-present camera, when I really needed it?

The silence you hear is the absence of me ringing the BBC and asking do they want to buy some dramatic news pictures!