I've seen some mad stuff in my time....

Just recently quite a few of life's odd moments seem to have been happening while I am present. here are two that happened within a week of each other.

1. Sitting on the tube from brixton to Victoria I saw a boy (8yrs old maybe) walk onto the tube and watch as the doors close behind him, leaving his parents and younger brother on the platform. a look of panic crossed his face and he immediately started hammering on the doors and screaming 'OPEN! OPEN!' at the top of his lungs. It did no good and as the train smoothly pulled away he collapsed into a heap on the floor crying his eyes out. Suddenly the time honoured tradition of never making eye-contact or communicatiing with other people on the tube was forgotten about. Several adults who had witnessed the incident rushed to the boy's side and spent the next few minutes comforting him and telling him not to worry. At the next stop two of these adults, took the boy off the train to presumably wait for his parents to travel to the that same stop and pick up their son. A heartening display of community spirit in the middle of London. Who'd have thought it eh?

2. This next situation happened just 6 days later. We were cycling along the Trans Penine Way next to the River Aire, just outside of Leeds when I got a puncture and had to turn back. As we approached a series of abandoned warehouses on the other side of the river we heard some shouting and then saw a 'youth' dressed appropriately in a black hoody legging it as fast as he could with a police officer in pursuit. The lad disappeared into some bushes and the copper spent about 5 minutes searching around before he found him and dragged him out before hand-cuffing him. So far, so exciting.

At the other end of the line of bushes (about 30 metres away) another copper appeared and seemed to be still searching around for someone. Suddenly from the bushes in the middle of where the two coppers were positioned emerged another 'youth' dressed similarly to his mate. He began creeping towards copper number 2, who didn't see him at first because the bushes were obscuring his vision. This was really weird because from where we were stood on the other side we were positioned perfectly to see everything that was going on. Copper 2 wandered off, even though we'd tried to indicate to him that the lad was heading his way by pointing (I guess we should really have shouted to him but there you go) The lad got to the end of the line of bushes and was spotted by copper 2. he then had no-where to go apart from around the outside of a barbed wire fence with spikes which was positioned so it extended out over the river, presumably to prevent people from accessing the warehouse grounds from the path. The lad just about managed to climb round and jump to safety before taking off at top speed down the other side of the river away from the police. copper 2 didn't attempt to climb round the spiky fence.

By this point there was police dogs, helicopters and 3 squad cars on the case! we continued our way back which happened to be in the same direction as the lad was running on the other side of the river. By the time we reached the bridge to get back onto the south side the lad was running towards us in the opposite direction! He ran straight past us, not very fast as I guess he was probably exhausted from being chased, and I was tempted to try and take him down 'citizen's arrest' style, but I bottled it. Moments later the police came running after him over the bridge and briefly stopped to ask us which direction he'd gone. It turns out they'd been burgling the warehouses and lock-ups on the riverside which is something one copper told us happens quite frequently round there.

Digital sketch for painting idea

Mary-Anne Hobbs to leave to Radio One!

I was listening to BBC Radio One's 'Experimental' show on the iplayer yesterday and long time presenter Mary-Anne Hobbs slipped into the conversation that she would be presenting her last show in 3 weeks time!

This was news to me and, having been a long time follower of Ms Hobbs since the Breezeblock days I have to say that I'm absolutely gutted that she's leaving the station. Apparently she's been offered a job in her home town of Sheffield at the Uni mentoring/lecturing students. Click the pic for more details.

The Breezeblock and Radio 1 Experimental were/are easily my favourite shows and with Mary-Anne leaving where am I going to get my weekly fix of dubstep/electronica from now?

Good luck to Mary-Anne. She is an inspiration and, from my limited understanding, has been hugely influential in terms of breaking/promoting new and up-coming artists.

Long live the real Queen of England Ms Mary-Anne Hobbs.