Friday, March 27, 2009

Revelation of the day


The Board is putting aside his dislike of Dublin, international soccer and Robbie Keane and will be in Croke Park for the Bulgaria match tomorrow.
The Board is also off work until Wednesday, and will be revealing little else forthwith.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Lazy town

Because I'm a) too insanely busy to write an actual blog post today and b) because the Limerick Leader's usual music writer On The Beat smells and is on holiday, The Board is posting his preview in this week's paper for Akil The MC's solo set in the Belltable on Friday.

Akil, of course, is a founding member of Jurassic Five. The Board, as some of you may have gathered from his earlier post on the topic, likes them a lot. I don't find that to be unethical. No no. And don't worry, The board's brief flirtation with music journalism will be mercifully brief. On The Beat is back next week.


TIME, culture and economics were all fairly cruel to Los Angeles rap collective Jurassic Five, the superstars who never were.

In the late 1990s, after almost 10 years of being bludgeoned by the likes of Ice Cube, the ears of South Central became tuned to an oddly polished brand of post-revival ensemble hip hop. For a group formed in a health store, of all places, Jurassic Five’s 1997 debut EP was an underground joy, dripping with simple beats, cut and paste samples and thinking-man’s lyrical interplay.

It was a hip hop fusion that carried through their ten years together, and is one that will be on display at the Belltable this Friday as founding member Akil The MC performs a highly anticipated solo set.

Jurassic Five weren’t quite a bolt from the blue - the groundwork had been laid years before by A Tribe Called Quest’s seminal ‘Midnight Marauders’ and those pioneers of the genre, De La Soul. But their breakthrough track ‘Concrete Schoolyard’ was equal parts fresh and disarmingly nostalgic, and the group offering “playground tactics/no rabbit in a hat tricks” seemed poised to take hip hop to a smoother place.

But Eminem was about to release the Marshall Mathers LP, and a rap genre that had become pointy and confrontational in the mid 1990s was about to become blissfully mainstream. J5 members Chali 2na, Akil, Soup, Mark 7even, DJ Nu-Mark and DJ Cut Chemist were about to find themselves in the right place at the wrong time.

Word of mouth ensured a full release for their debut EP in December 1998 on Pan Records, and in June 2000 Interscope published their second studio work ‘Quality Control’. Despite weaving together deceptively slick production, social commentary and left field samples - as well as containing the menacing masterpiece ‘Contribution’ - Quality Control was blighted from the start.

The group always had an awkward relationship with Interscope, complaining that the label were attempting to shoe-horn their style into places where it wouldn’t fit. (Prior to releasing ‘Quality Control’ one record company official is reported to have demanded more “Southern jigga-boo” beats).

Still, their creativity peaked with 2002 release ‘Power In Numbers’, which reached number 15 in the US Billboard 200. It was a spell binding record which could have easily been packaged as a concept album, so perfectly did it capture the grief, smooth life and lazy love of black man in modern LA.

2006’s ‘Feedback’ was equally successful commercially, but was met with a lukewarm reaction from critics. By this stage DJ Cut Chemist had left the group and their balance seemed to suffer, with collaborations with Nelly Furtado and the Dave Matthews Band sounding like the product of a group in search of a way.

They split in ambiguous circumstances in February 2007. This Friday founding member Akil performs a solo set at the Belltable on Cecil Street, where he will combine smidgens of his recent solo work with the likes of DJ Format and Japan’s DJ Yuktaka with a blend of J5 staples.

Revelation of the day


The Board utterly despises Bell X1.
It's cynical happy-go-lucky tripe that only aims to get female first year business students drunk and swoony.
Go away. Now.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

The wrong place, the wrong time, the wrong idea


The international banking crisis has become the first phoney war of the 21st century.

Just like Europe in 1913, propaganda and ignorance on the part of the powers that be is clouding any attempt at tackling a deep-seated and poisonous problem, and we are all suffering because of it.

Tanaiste Mary Coughlan is calling for Irish Nationwide CEO Michael Fingleton to return a €1 million bonus, in line with the Government's new, seemingly morally superior code on pay for bank executives following the State guarantee.

Once more, this is just the Government emitting hot air. Once more, it is Minister Coughlan who is responsible for it.

All over the developed world (excluding Canada, of course) senior bankers are being subjected to nothing short of a witch hunt. What is most unsettling is that this mass vilification is being backed, legitimised and encouraged by governments.

Senior bankers deserve little clemency from anyone, of course. The more we learn, the more we have come to realise that the dispensing of bad credit and seepage of toxic debt was derived from greed and irresponsibility by the people who were in charge of our money.

But with our exchequer bleeding and the toughest budget since The Emergency likely to come in the coming weeks, the last thing we need is this sort of mindless populism from the Tanaiste.

Wasting time, effort and what little political capital the Government has left going after individual bankers shows a clear lack of ideas and leadership.

Making Fingleton hand back his bonus will not fix the shocking lack of regulation in Irish banking that let men like him award themselves this money in the first place. But crippling bank CEO's wages will only serve to ensure that the best people for these jobs will look elsewhere when asked to take up the stewardship of our banks in the medium and long term.

There is no joined up thinking here.

This Government, bereft as they are of popular support, have been reduced to dispensing soundbites that play on the anger and confusion of ordinary people towards the banks.

Because the ineptitude of Minister Coughlan and her cabinet colleagues becomes clear with even the slightest scrutiny, they are determined to direct the eyes and the fury of the Irish people at anyone but themselves.

Revelation of the day


In the first of a pseudo-regular feature, The Board admits that he loves Alphabeat.
Deal with it.

Monday, March 23, 2009

The boy with the thorn in his side



The cosmic truth is finally upon us. Stephen Jones, rugby correspondent with the Sunday Times, is insane.

Having read his British and Irish Lions selection, which includes only two Irishmen (who aren't Paul O'Connell and Brian O'Driscoll, by the way), his madness can no longer be disputed.

As a nation we must ask ourselves some pertinent questions. Growing up in Newport, was Jones bullied in primary school by an Irish child? Perhaps his first car was stolen by an Irishman, drenched in green paint, driven to Cardiff and thrown into the River Taff?

His utter dislike of the Irish and his blindness to the talents of our rugby players can only come from some hidden well of childhood grief.
The Board has another theory. Stand up and Fight, the editor of the Limerick Leader, once worked with Jones at the Times. Perhaps it was he, through some grievance of water coolers or red biro scarcity, who created this Welshman's bitterness towards the glory of our land.

If you, too, are fed up of being turned into a molten pot of rage every Sunday morning, feel free to direct your anger to standupandfight@limerickleader.ie.

Consider it an exercise in anger management.
P.S. The Board has thrown down the gauntlet to The Hogespot, who claims to know something about rugby because he can throw a tyre around Kilballyowen, to pick a Lions XV.
The criteria, crucially, is not to pick a Home Nations XV a la Championship Manager. The team must be one that can deal with the speedy South African backs, their lumberjack pack, and the High Veld.
The man who has the most correct selections come the first test is to reward the other with a mountain of gold bullion and the keys to a brand new, pre-owned Daewoo Matiz.
I'm excited already.
1. Alastair Dickinson (Scotland)
2. Rory Best (Ireland)
3. Euan Murray (Scotland)
4. Paul O'Connell (Ireland, captain)
5. Alun Wyn-Jones (Wales)
6. Ryan Jones (Wales)
7. David Wallace (Ireland)
8. Jamie Heaslip (Ireland)
9. Dwayne Peel (Wales)
10. Stephen Jones (Wales)
11. Shane Williams (Wales)
12. Riki Flutey (England)
13. Brian O'Driscoll (Ireland)
14. Luke Fitzgerald (Ireland)
15. Lee Byrne (Wales)
Have at thee, Hogan.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Rule Britannia


The Board is disappointed that for all the literature in our blood and the wit on our tongues, we Irish have still not found a slogan for these times of guilt and recession.

Usually, the world reveals itself to a Celt once he is staring at his own doom. Bagenal Harvey and the pikes. Oscar Wilde and the curtains.

Yet here we are, in the land of uber-branding, a place where a man's posters say more than his words ever will, and we're still waiting on the punch line.

Were Bernard Manning not a) British and b) dead, he would give us a one liner about dirty Poles, a fat man's chuckle and some fatherly reassurance.

Don't ever let them stop you laughing, son.

However The Board is now tired of waiting for the Irish to make a t-shirt of George Lee's face above Richard Pryor's line of defiance: "I ain't dead yet, motherf*cker"

As such, he has decided to join his former English brethren by purchasing a 'Keep Calm And Carry On' t-shirt, having read about them with glee in yesterday's Guardian.

The Board grew up in London, so when the occasion warrants it he can get away with trimming in behind some wartime austerity from Her Majesty.
Carry on, indeed.

Sign of the times



So here we have it. The first violent death in Moyross since Regeneration began working on the ground in the area.

It is a landmark that none of us wanted to face but one which was also tragically certain.

But the killing of 18-year-old Darren Bennett does not bring with it any of the disclaimers or reassurances we normally use to comfort ourselves when a young man meets a violent end in Limerick.

It wasn't feud related. It wasn't linked to organised crime. It was random and unpredictable and heartbreaking for the mother, father, three brothers and two sisters that are now in mourning.

Working in the local media, you can set your watch to the amount of times local politicians mention how they love Regeneration, and how the re-building of Moyross and Southill and Weston is the noble, necessary cause of our times.

But how many men, women, political parties and interest groups actually have a driven, undimmed plan to address disadvantaged urban Limerick?

In election year everyone claims to be tough on crime. How many are tough on the causes of crime? How frequently do we see the word 'poverty' printed on those lovely election pamphlets that are falling through our letter boxes at present?

The poverty platform just isn't sexy. Voters on the Ballinacurra Road care more about the parking outside their door than intravenous drug abuse taking place two miles away in Prospect.

Our attitudes are reflected in the words we say, the people we elect and stasis of our politics.

And while we wait for that to change, young men continue to die.

Monday, March 16, 2009

A social animal


There's a good article in the New York Times today on how EU member states are starting to get a touch of cold feet on the issue of taking in detainees from Guantanamo Bay, as many - including Ireland - initially said they would.

Now that the diplomatic euphoria of Barack Obama's election has receded, world powers are starting to realise that yes, the world is still in the toilet and no, international relations haven't gotten any less complicated because the US President now knows how to punctuate a sentence.

The European concerns about the details of possible prisoner release, from access to US intelligence on the men to what their status within the EU will be, are tangible and understandable.

Through Guantanamo Bay, CIA rendition and illegal detention, George W Bush has essentially created the most layered and complex foreign policy knot of our generation. It will not be undone quickly or easily.

Assuming that the Government does not renege on its offer to take one or more Gitmo prisoners into the country, it is only a matter of time before public opinion here and elsewhere begins to sway this debate to a potentially awkward conclusion.

How receptive can we expect the Irish public to be to the whole idea? Even if the Department of Justice's already messy web of immigration policy is negotiated and agreed status is afforded to a Gitmo prisoner, it will not make dealing with a ream of social problems any easier.

For instance, how well could one of the 17 Chinese Muslim Uighur minority currently detained in Cuba integrate into the Asian community in Dublin, or even Limerick?

How long would it take before the News of The World or some scaremongering Republican Sinn Fein mouthpiece track down and expose them?

To what extent would Garda monitoring undermine the individual's ability to assimilate into Irish society?

The upcoming meeting of the European Council will most likely see leaders spend most of their time arguing over Eastern bank bailouts and the explosive cost of our exports. But they would also do well to consider how they intend to handle the Gitmo issue as well.

Barack Obama has a 12-month timetable in place for the full closure of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, and being the realist that he is it is one he will want to adhere to.

The attitude of the Irish public towards Gitmo prisoners living and working amongst us - be they hardened zealots or innocent victims of CIA brutality - will go a long way towards shaping the Government's overall stance on the issue.

The Government could certainly do with the political capital that will come from working with Washington on this.

But making it work on a social level will be far more complicated.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Behold a pale horse

I've decided to come to my senses and set my money on fire.

No, seriously, think about it.

Ten to twelve seconds of bright light and warm fingers would be a far more productive use of my legal tender than backing these Godforsaken horses.

A good tip Gavin, really? Casey Jones in the 2.40, huh? 12/1 is a good price is it? Worth a fiver each way, is he?

Tearing off my own face with cheese wire would make more sense.

If Alexander Severus doesn't win in the 4.40 The Board will place a bomb in his shoe and kick John McCirick in the rump.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

The Life of Kings


Set aside your grief, people of the world. Bury your pithy concerns about human trafficking and de-forestation and AIDS. Why? Because Lambo is hurting.
Yes, the Irish incarnation of Glenn Beck and Fatman Scoop rolled into one has decided, after much "soul searching", that he will do his patriotic duty and take a ten per cent pay cut.
In so doing, Ryan becomes the last of RTE's egotistical, over-paid top brass to voluntarily accept a pay cut that has already been in effect for junior staff for weeks. Lambo, God have mercy on his soul, will now have to find a way to manage on slightly under €500,000 per year.
A hero of our times, you say. A leader of men, you declare. Truly this man should be President. But it wasn't an easy decision. No no.
Ryan spoke at length with his children before making the decision, according to The Irish Times. Teenagers, lest we forget, are the true oracles of fiscal prudence.
In announcing the decision to his listeners this morning, whilst presumably posing for a specially-commissioned Bayeux tapestry detailing his own magnificence, Ryan beautifully stated:
"It has made it an honour for me to be sitting in this seat and all along you have never steered me wrong. You have made me smile, you have slapped me across the wrist where appropriate but you have always kept faith"
Siegfried Sassoon could not have written more eloquently about tragedy and human spirit.
How privileged we are in this country to have a national broadcaster that rewards principle, objectivity and modesty in its broadcasters.

Words of hatred


This is Joe Lynch. He is the chairman of the Republican Sinn Fein branch on the southside of the city.
Below is Joe Lynch's comments on Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness' call for co-operation with the PSNI in relation to the brutal and indefensible murders of two soldiers and a policeman in the North by the cowardly swine of the Real and Continuity IRA.
Consider it another example, if we need one, of the mindless and intellectually hollow thinking that drives these people.
The brazen political hypocrisy of the Adams and McGuinness Provisionals
has now reached a new sickening low with their call to inform to the police in
the ongoing conflict in the Six Counties, a spokesman for Republican
Sinn Fein said today.

Joe Lynch from Beechgrove Avenue in Ballinacurra Weston in Limerick, the RSF chairman in the southside of the city said that the comments of both Adams and
McGuinness in the wake of the army attack exposed the real feelings of
men who once were considered Republicans.

They now want people to inform to the police in order to protect their huge
political payments and their positions of power under the British Crown, he said.

The fact is the Republican Movement they joined is still intact despite their best efforts at destroying it by selling out and surrendering to the British and accepting partition and British occupation. For as long as British troops remain in Ireland they
will be opposed by the Irish people.

Their weasel words ring out at a time when they are also commemorating the Gibraltar Three who were executed by British State agents in this ongoing war against the British occupation in Ireland. Adams and McGuinness have the gall to parade to the graves of men and women who died in the cause of Irish freedom while
acting as agents of the British Crown against true Republican people.

The operation at the British Army barracks in Antrim finally exposes the real nature of these so called figures in Republicanismwho are now so compromised that the have to do the bidding of the British.

Not only should they stay from Republican graves this weekend and in future, they should also cease using the name Sinn Fein because they have disgraced it.

Monday, March 9, 2009

The thick plot gets thicker


Human history has been a painful and cynical jig.

The Dark Ages, the fall of Constantinople, the Great Fire of London, the invention of folk music - through all his endeavours man has truly perfected the art of making life completely miserable.

But even Nero would have struggled to conjure something so thoroughly tormenting as a local election.

The tedium. The glad-handing. The camp electioneering. The posturing. The intellectual emptiness.

The suffering.

Thanks to our PR-STV system for electing members of the Dail, local government in this country is essentially an irrelevance, and is treated in the halls of power as such.

While local councils should be the first (and most crucial) form of active citizenship, town, county and city councils in this country instead reflect little more than localised versions of the Seanad - launching pads for some careers, retirement homes for others, and a shelf for the rest to stew, refrain and swear.

There are some very good men and women sitting on Limerick City and County Councils. But there are far too many self-important, litigious and inactive cronies whom the politics and systems of our country have allowed to bleed the State dry.

Every five years, we hope that the electorate will toss out this dead weight that claims to represent our interests but does little of the sort.

But so long as local government in this country is by-passed and councillors are left without true, demanding responsibility that would separate the public servants from the leeches, we will continue to vote for the people who bought us a pint, the faces we recognise, the men and women who are incapable.

Or, worse still, we don't bother to vote at all.

Friday, March 6, 2009

Curse this recession

Pic: Sportsfile

Crappy news, sports fans, brought to you as ever by your friendly neighbourhood purveyors of doom, the Limerick Leader.
The Andy Lee/Jamie Power Madison Square Garden St Patrick's Day Extravaganza has been cancelled.
Despite the organiser's hopes that an Irishman-heavy bill would bring the Paddys in by the barrel, ticket sales have been poor and the rug has been pulled.
Bah.
The decline of headline boxing since the mid 1990s, brought on mostly by the disintegration of the heavyweight division, had actually begun to turn recently.
This was mostly due to the eschewing of title bouts as the main draw for promoters in favour of catchweight tussles that brought unlikely styles and sizes of big name fighter into the ring together.
Back in the day, Hopkins-Pavlik and Pacquiao-De La Hoya just wouldn't have happened. But it's an experiment that has worked, and it had even been touted that a Vegas clash between the winner of May's Pacquaio-Hatton bout could even draw Floyd Mayweather Jr, the biggest cash cow of them all, out of retirement.
But when even a headline card at The Garden falls victim of the recession, it doesn't bode well for the immediate future of glamour boxing as a commodity.
As for Andy Lee, it seems his path to the middleweight championship will have to be at least 18 months longer.
He has the talent, and his jab could knock the paint off a fighter jet, but so long as the Bob Arums of this world don't like the sums he won't be getting a crack at Kelly Pavlik any time soon.
Pity.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Adjectives and astronomy


Modern man has a lot to be happy for. Sliced cheese, for example. And Jeremy Clarkson.

But one of the more agitating things we have to put up with is the liberal, illicit use of the word 'celebrity'.

Once, it meant something. Joe Namath was a celebrity. Tupac Shakur was a celebrity. The Wombles were celebrities.

But now it has been reduced to a flippant adjective, something for the tabloids to put before perfectly ordinary occupations such as 'chef', 'gardener' and 'bigamist'.

This Friday, we get to see another scurrilous use of the term with the 'celebrity' jigs and reels competition in the Sin Bin nightclub.

Now now, put down that mallet. The Board of course supports all efforts to raise money for breast cancer research, and he is sure it will be great fun, etc etc etc

But God, as always, resides in the details.

The Board works within ear shot of one of the contestants, David Hurley, and we can assure you that a celebrity he is not. (He isn't much of a dancer either, but that is beside the point)

And make no mistake, attempting to quench our rage by adding the suffix 'local' celebrities won't work.

The journalists, councillors, retired models and ambiguous rugby figures of Limerick have been sucked into Andy Warhol's grey pond of celebrity, in which no one is famous because everyone is.

(This doesn't include the Claw, obviously. If he ever thought I was slagging him The Board would be both murdered and killed)

Nonetheless The Board will be in The Sin Bin on Friday, deriding all the contestants and consuming liquefied barley by the tonne.

If he survives the night without having a shoe lodged in his eye socket, he will consider it victory.

Though he was quite disturbed when he read this story on the BBC's website, explaining how two black holes have been found "dancing" perilously close to each other in a galaxy far, far away.

Untold quasar-based destruction will be caused should one confuse the other's tango with his charleston.

The omens for Friday, it seems, are written in the stars.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Snowy, isn't it?














A touch of snow in Limerick City this morning, as you may have noticed. These are some of our own pics, taken by Adrian Butler. If you have any of your own, follow the link here and we'll stick them up on the main website.
On a side note, The Chalkboard had another victory in his ongoing Jihad with On The Beat this morning.
The grubby music writer thought he would throw down with a few snowballs after coffee in the White House this morning.
But The Board, with an arm like Roger Clemens, landed a few upside his head and sent him back to his desk with a slushy jumper and a flag of surrender.
Huzzah!

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Something Unscripted


Fresh from the oily tinker box that is the Limerick Leader's entertainment corner comes the most exciting news since the moon landing.

Jurassic Five are coming to Limerick!

Well, one of them is.

Akil (The short one) is going to be performing a solo MC set at The Belltable on March 27. Allow me to lead the first celebratory cry.

Boo-Ya!

As a 23-year-old male with far to high an opinion of himself, The Board has his vices. Foremost of these is a love of post-revival ensemble hip-hop.

Every morning, before he sets off to work to spin his words every which way, The Board spends nine minutes sitting in his car with J5's 'Power in Numbers' and 'Quality Control' and A Tribe Called Quest's 'Midnight Marauders' and 'The Love Movement' in his hands, trying to pick his 7.30am ear-gravy.

The Board admits that he got a little light headed when he heard rumours that J5 might be coming to Limerick. (They disbanded in 2007, of course, and re-forming seemed to be off the agenda). And even though it will just be Akil and his face fuzz making an appearance on Cecil Street, we are still pleased.

All credit to Joanne Beirne at the Belltable and Eight Ball for giving me a reason to wish away the next 24 days.

One can only hope that Eight Ball's press release, guaranteeing a spatter of J5 classics in Akil's set, is accurate.

'Hey', The Board feels, is on a par with 'Electric Relaxation' as the finest smooth-joint of the past 20 years.

We thought we'd come a little different/Somethin' unscripted/Push up our percentage/Rip it like we meant it/Vintage verses sentence wordsmith/Here with no delay/Relax and don't decay/Turn to the DJ/He can make ya people say...Hey...Hey

Tidy.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Eye of the storm

The Board wrote in defence of Taoiseach Brian Cowen here quite recently. It was a defence based on character, intelligence and the man's clear duty to public service. It is a defence he has been forced to revisit in the wake of his and his party's performance at their Ard Fheis.

Brian Cowen still posseses those qualities, of course. But the problem here is his party.

Noel Dempsey's bombastic and brutally honest speech aside, the Ard Fheis was self-serving, aggrandising and very difficult to watch.

The party of government have clearly decided that at a time when their popular support is at a record low, they will stay true to their core, indulge one another and hold the line.

Not. Good. Enough.

One immediately thought of Lindsey Graham's speech to the Republican Party convention in the US last year, in which he brazenly declared that his party "are on the way to victory" over Barack Obama. Very rarely do we get to see politicians loudly declare just out of touch they and their parties are.

The Fianna Fail pantomime - in which Bertie Ahern (a man who posterity will judge as a reckless, manipulative and painfully populist leader) received a prolonged standing ovation - will do little to restore its battered reputation.

When an electorate is so dead set against you, your policies, your culture of cronyism and how you have steered this country into a ravine, the only choice a party has is to offer up its cheek.

The entire FF party are not to blame for the banking crisis, of course. Minister Dempsey's declaration that they are not all "guilty by association" does ring true.

But the Irish voters are not willing to compromise. Fianna Fail stood with open arms to receive the joy of the boom. It now has to take all the anger of the bust. If you want to deflect blame, a brash display of assumed authority under the FF banner isn't the way to do it.

It is no coincidence that Labour leader Eamon Gilmore is the most popular politician in the country today. It is no coincidence that the Democratic Party hold all three arms of the US government. It is no coincidence that laissez-faire leaders, from Sarkozy to Kostas Karamanlis, are without popular support.

Western democracy is moving to the left.

If Fianna Fail is left holding three local councils across the country after June 5, we will all be very surprised.

Conversational theft

The Board has a lot to thank David Simon and Ed Burns for.

Generation Kill, which is currently eating up a meaty slice of his Sky+ box, is a slick, sarcastic and utterly real depiction of what the Colin Powell warfare model has made of the standard US Marine.

And then there's the small matter of The Wire.

If you haven't seen it yet, The Board recommends it as highly as Alexander Fleming did penicillin.

There's little I or anyone can write here of its sheer majesty that hasn't already been said. Put simply, it should have won a Nobel Prize for literature. It is the pinnacle of television as a modern art form.

But aside from all this, it will give you something equally precious - the chance to pass yourself off as being smarter than you really are.

The Board, as we have discussed, occasionally presents himself as a journalist. As such, when the 14 arrests were made last week in relation to the murder of Shane Geoghegan (the first charge of many, it is hoped, being made on Friday) his friends asked him questions, assuming he knew something.

The following is a rough transcript, edited for purposes of realism:

Q:"Who are these 14? Did one of them do it?"

A: "Well, maybe. They probably think a few of them were involved, but they can't be sure. So you arrest a load of street level associates at the same time - people who might have helped hide the ones who did it, maybe stashed the gun.

"You get them all in, so no one knows what the other's been saying. Then you lean on the low level players, wave some 3 to 5 at them, try and roll them up the chain. The senior guys know how to take some jail time, sure, but the younger ones, the teens in it for a thrill and some pocket money, they're the ones the Guards will sweat. They're the ones who'll point fingers.

*The Board breaks into a slight Baltimore drawl*

"Good po-lice, after all, ain't nuthin without informants."

For holding his own in this conversation, and for the gift of 'Charles Dickens' as a slang term, The Board owes thanks to the regal vision of Simon and Burns.

He can only hope they're not men to call in favours.