North / South - More Guardian sniping

Hat tip, McGaribaldi.

A largely humorous article on first reading, how to tell whether your city's location in the North / South divide by how you like your beer, basically with a head, North; flat & no head, WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.

But, look at it a second time and you notice that, again, there is just another ill-informed dig at Nottingham, using a made-up study to have a go at Nottingham's gun crime "problem".

The unfortunate Danielle Beccan was not killed in the cross-fire between two gangs, instilling to the reader an image of Wild West type shoot-outs happening on every Nottingham street corner. The sad reality was two idiots from a different area of town driving into their rival area and shooting at a random group of people. The two have been tried, convicted and will spend a considerable length of time rightly behind bars.

The reality is (from the BBC):

Just over half of all firearms offences occurred in just three major forces - the Metropolitan Police in London, Greater Manchester and West Midlands.

Drilling down into the national figures up to the end of April 2006 shows that West Midlands, Merseyside and Greater Manchester Police have all experienced drops in firearms offences whereas London has seen an increase.

You don't need me to tell you where London sits in the North / South argument ? (Clue, you can't get a decent pint there)

The Metropolitan Police says that in the 12 months to July 2007 it saw a 3.5% rise in firearms offences - up from 3,485 to 3,607 incidents.

Nottingham is another city that has struggled with a guns label after a number of killings in 2004, including schoolgirl Danielle Beccan - but its police chiefs say public perception is at odds with reality because the city witnesses far fewer incidents per resident than other so-called gun hotspots. Figures show Nottinghamshire Police recorded one firearms-related death in 2006 and none as of August 2007.

Maybe in Elizabeth Day, the odious Simon Jenkins has finally found himself a female to share his clammy little embrace, negating the need for him to travel up to Nottingham in search of his share of the six women to every man, or write any more b******s articles. He may not have written this, but it's got his stench all over it.

It's clear that the pair of them are journalists of the worse kind, lazy, unscrupulous & just plain s***e.