Every so often, I like to take a breather from the case posts and put up some thoughts of my own. Now and again, I read a book about the current crime scene, which reinforces the fact that the "Cor blimey, guv" underworld is well and truly dead, and has been for decades. It is just that there are the various individuals who still like to think that the "golden era of crime" was the be-all and end-all of organised crime. We have heard that "women and children were not harmed." Amazing that many still like to cling to that fantasy. And when you hear from old villains, they try to justify everything they have done. The difference with today's criminals is that they make no bones about who they are and what they do. But there are many who like to boast about what they have done and seek publicity, just like the heroes to the retarded did, in the East End.
In the literary world, the criminal autobiography is by and large, a thing of the past. Publishers have wizened up to the fact that many openly lie about their "exploits" and everybody disagrees with what another has written.(by a ghostwriter) There had only been a couple released over the last couple of years. One by Jimmy "The Weed" Donnelly, from Manchester, is one I liked. He talks of many of the other villains, characters, hard men, that you never hear of. And the truth behind the Quality Street Gang. Donnelly makes no bones that he and a couple of the QSG WERE villains, but most were not. Another book that recently came out was by former armed robber Bobby Cummins. To be honest, I thought that this would have come out a couple of years ago. But it falls into the same old trap of old villains. "I am not a gangster, I am a businessman!" Oh, so robbing banks, holding people up, carrying a gun, and general mayhem, is all in the day of a "businessman." What a load of bollocks. Cummins was a criminal. Simple as.
When you read the articles and books by investigative journalists, and you read of the rampant trade in drugs and what people do to get drugs and just lengths pushers will go to, to keep addicts addicted, it makes the guy who was on the Jeremy Vine Show on Radio 2, claiming that the recent crime statistics showing crime had dropped 15%(Everybody burst out laughing) was accurate and the drug problem is nowhere as bad as it was in the 80`s, because most addicts were in treatment. A drug counsellor I know burst out laughing when I told him this. Very loudly!!! One anonymous villain quoted by journalist Tony Thompson, says that you can spot the criminal failures. You see their memoirs in the bookshops. He says the really successful villains do not put their heads in the spotlight, and you would not have heard of most of them. I see that programme by Donal McIntyre, "At home with the Noonans" as nothing more than the Noonans declaring to Manchester that they are still well and truly alive and active.
One name we never hear floating about these days and that is of king of the clowns Dave Courtney. Whilst real villains go about making money illicitly, he tries to make a living taking money from the mugs who believe his brand of bullshit. I wonder if he still claims he is under constant 24 hour surveillance by Police? This would make the Metropolitan Police the laughing stock of the world, and would be the most criminal and obscene waste of manpower and money. One man claimed to me that Courtney`s books have all been BIG sellers. A claim that brought howls of laughter from my contacts in the publishing world. And I did make quite a few.
I posted before that Courtney has claimed to have been acquitted of murder, but frequently dodged and ducked a £25,000 offer to prove it was true. That means arrest papers, charge sheets, station charged in, court he appeared at and when, so it could be verified. But no. Who wants the truth? Certainly not the bullshitters and their fan clubs.
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