For some reason earlier this week I found myself on the website of The Northern Echo which is one of Middlesborough’s local papers (it’s shit) and I found myself clicking on the headline that you saw to this article for probably the same reason that you clicked on this article – I was completely perplexed that it was even worthy of a news story.

The article went on to describe how a woman had been seen stealing a pair of gloves from the Poundland in Bishop Auckland – which I’m guessing is some small town up there – and police were trying to track her down. Apparently she stole these gloves over the weekend between 5 and 5:30pm on November 2nd. She was described as white, between 40 and 50 years old, around 5 foot 10 inches tall and wearing a grey black and white chequered jacket in jeans and boots. Anyone with any information is asked to contact PC Jamie Pitt. You can read the actual news article here.

Now, I just can’t understand why the helll this is news? Aside from the obvious line that the North East is crap and nothing happens, there is absolutely no way that it’s so crap that something like this is news. I mean maybe if she’d stolen the gloves from some expensive designer store or something, but Poundland?

Who gives a flying fuck seriously? The gloves are probably completely crappy and only cost a pound and people shoplift way more valuable stuff than that every day in stores all over the country I’m sure. There’s surely no way that Bishop Auckland has such a low level of crime that this is what constitutes police work up there. Even if it was, you would expect the police to actually be able to do some policing of the crime and not have to resort to a halfassed appeal in the local newspaper.

Basically the whole incident just completely perplexes me and I can’t understand why the journalist has bothered to report it at all. Fortunately, many of the residents of the northeast – or just random people that for some reason choose to frequent the Northern Echo website – seem to share my sentiments as can be seen by some of the comments left on the article. Here are a few of my favourites:

‘I know a crime is a crime but surely there has to be a better use of precious police resources than investigating a theft of a pair of gloves from poundland?? I dont know the answer, but for petty crimes like these there has to be an easier, more sensible and more efficient approach than wasting a warranted police officers time on it, especially when numbers are being cut? If the council were running the police then these sort of crimes would have been stopped being investigated by a police officer years ago and left to concentrate on more important matters.’

‘I agree with stevegg……..it’s a crime at the end of the day, but I am sure worse crimes will have been reported in Bishop in the last few days……shows what a desperate state of affairs were are in if someone has to steal a pair of gloves from a pound shop……’

‘if poundland get in touch with the echo i will pay them the pound plus expences times are hard and people are cold’

More fantastic comments over the page: