Shot In The Head

Shot in the head. That was the fate of a 16 year old boy found dead in a park in the Burngreave area of Sheffield on Wednesday evening. Just another gun-crime statistic in this once great land of ours that I grew up in, never thinking for a moment Britain would become like America where the gun culture is an accepted part of their way of life. According to Chief Superintendent Jon House, who has since tried to reassure the local community that gun crime was rare in Sheffield, the unfortunate victim was a black youth from a respectable local family. I am sure the family of the un-named victim will think that gun-crime is not rare enough! Detectives were looking at possible links to another shooting in the city in the last 24 hours, so 2 shootings in 24 hours and gun crime is a rarity in Sheffield. It’s just as well gun crime is not a common problem then! It gets worse as it may also be linked to yet another shooting that took place six weeks ago. Chief Superintendent House is however, determined to solve the crime quickly and is not expecting retribution. No comment has been made as to whether the incidents were drug or gang related but recent trends would suggest there must be links. In the days when I was 16 I can’t recall any gun related incidents ever taking place. It just goes to show to what depths society has plunged as a result of the failure of successive governments in dealing with the real concerns of the public they are elected to serve, by cracking down hard on all types of crime and making sure there are real deterrents for offences of this nature.

Last night whilst this tragic event was taking place I was listening to music on my Ipod. Now if you are as a big a music fan as I am and you haven’t got an Ipod or similar device then I suggest you get one. It has certainly been a great investment and a wonderful present from my girlfriend. I am still adding tunes to the 6,000 odd so far downloaded and regularly use it in the shuffle mode, which, for those who don’t know, means it playing tracks at random. The first track it selected was the Smiths song "Meat is Murder", so after listening to that, I think I am lucky not to have succumbed and jumped under a bus, however things improved when a Scorpions song followed. The Scorpions remind me of the 4 years I spent living in Germany at the time the Berlin Wall came down and the associated euphoria that existed during this time. Having known what I do now, having experienced the dismantling of the Soviet bloc and witnessed the creation of the European Union I think I should have gone to Berlin and built the wall back up again. The third track played was "19 Years" by Lee Haggan (available from Great White Records), quite poignant now knowing of the boy’s murder in Sheffield.

On a final note I have been watching with interest the reaction and comment regarding the Searchlight mail-out to all who stood as candidates for the BNP at the May elections. For those who don’t know, Searchlight have decided, again, to demoralise those associated with the party in an attempt to destabilise it. This shows me that they have real worries about what is being achieved. A piece of advice given to me by Martin Wingfield (whose blog, http://www.martinwingfield.blogspot.com/, you may have seen), when discussing something similar a few years ago, was, I think, something he had heard Bill Shankly say on the lines of “If everyone else is doing their own job properly then we have no need to worry what the opposition are doing”.

Fine words, please take note.