The North West 12 11 - stray thoughts on being a terrist in Manchester

Cheetham Hill is both a road and a district. At one time early in the 20th century a respectable and largely Jewish suburb in N. Manchester many of whose residents made their post war Exodus to Israel.

It is now a cosmopolitan area with a high proportion of both legal and illegal immigrant communities, Asian , quat chewing Somali, Ethiopians, West Africans, East Europeans, Kurds, Iraqis ... A mobile crowd with a core of low level criminals, dealers, thieves, pimps, ladies who have many boyfriends, massage parlours and where few people ask questions, and receive fewer answers.

Remarkably for at least 2 weeks, 4-6 weeeks ago the lower Ciy Centre end of Cheetham Hill was busy with door to door pollsters from regular companies. A long arm extension of the law, recruited by habit to ask the qestions that MI 5 / Plod cannot ask - it set alarm bells jangling. Jingle - Jangle on the Jungle Telegaph.

Now we have the North West 12 11 and the implausible (and risible) tales of bomb plots.

St Anne's Square

Many would welcome a bomb - especially around the disabled parking bays outside Habitat and Russell and Bromleys where 300lb West Indians, with slick wrap round shades and hundred weights of gold bling wait in their massive Audi 4x 4's and top end Range Rovers with tinted windows. They sit impassively answering their mobiles in endless brief convrsations , whilst their lady friends in impossibly tight jeans or impossibly short skirts go shopping. Unbothered by Plod and traffic wardens.

Trafford Centre

Part of the Lord Patel commercial Empire at one time included a company shoppp.com Ltd with a website www.shopp.com . In 2001 - 3 a 3dimensional site was developed. This took the form of modular cubes which linked and whose surfaces could be textured.

It was therefore possible to emulate a closed environment - as in a shopping centre on a ship.

The user / viewer could apparently stroll through the site and seamlessy jump / walk into a shop.

The shop would have a variety of links .... for example today's best buy or special offers. Clicking on thes would lead to the user being able to printoff a coupon redeemable only today - or one week etc., Another click could lead to ordering online ... endless possibilities.

The flaw was that the penetration of broadband and decent home kit meant a very limited audience - and, more importantly, we ran out of money. Brilliant idea but we were ahead of our time.

High on the list of prospects was the (then) newly opened Trafford Centre and much time was spent attempting to visualise it - a bugger because it does not have a rectangular floor plan. So therefore we amassed a library of pictures and did a lot of research.

Sanderson Computing from Sheffield, a top quality engineering software house - who used the very novel, and for it's time a brilliant Pick operating system, used to have details on their website of the number plate reading sofware they supplied initially to Trafford Centre.

Over the years their security has become leading edge and every vehicle registration which enters runs automatically through the DVLC database, any connected individuals / ownes etc., are routed through the PNC, Unpaid fines , watch lists etc., ivers and passnegers can be photographed and their pictures cirucated instantly , if they have mobile (even if switched off) they can be tracked using GPS...

Anyone who fancies bombing Trafford Centre (and one must assume any other centre of a similiar size) is a mug.

However 4 people had it off on their toes with £500,000 of watches / jewellery from Selfridges on Monday night in the City Centre.

Wall Street Journal today ...

The U.K. government now is bracing for the possibility that it may not have enough evidence to prosecute most of the 12 people arrested, according to two people familiar with the matter. That could result in the case becoming an immigration matter focusing on whether the suspects properly entered the U.K. from Pakistan, these people said.