Fun Graffiti

I love graffiti art, I think it’s a great medium, and yes, I do appreciate the damage it can do, nor do I condone it. I found a great little website to make your own graffiti logos, here is mine.

I is from da getto

The Stolen Watch Saga

A few people who know me have asked me about this and a few people who don’t know me have asked about it so I thought I’d post it for the record so you could enjoy.

A few years ago, I was given a watch for Christmas it was a pretty unusual watch in that it had a bright green face and not really to anyone else but my taste

The original watch

I am trying to be a regular user of my gym. I normally take my watch off and put it in my coat pocket while getting changed so I don’t wear it while exercising. On this day I went to the gym quite late on in the evening, well past 8:00 after doing some work in London which made me get home late (Thanks Great Western Trains). I was that late that towards the end of my session the Gym asked everyone to go and get changed as they wanted to close at 10:00. I had my shower, got dressed and went home, on my way home I realised I had not got my watch in my coat pocket, it must have fell out in the locker when hung up my in the locker. I called the gym and they said to come and collect it in the morning they opened at 6:30 and as I knew there was only 3 – 4 other men in the gym at the time of “last orders” I felt quite secure. I turned up at the gym the next morning at around 6:00 as again, I had to go to London in the morning so I was there before the gym staff. When the gym staff turned up I went into the locker to discover it was not there ! I reported it lost to the gym staff to see if one of the other 3 -4  male gym users had handed it in, or a cleaner. Days past and I realised it was stolen. I reported the crime at my local police station who said they could not really do anything but would offer me a crime number for insurance use. Due to this watch being a present I knew how much it would upset my girlfriend who gave me the watch as well as frustrate me as I really loved the watch, I decided to try to find a replacement.

finding a replacement was not an easy task, after contacting Paul Smith who where the makers I found out that the watch was a limited edition run, and was discontinued from production in 2005. I contacted the Paul Smith shop in London Covent Garden where my girlfriend had purchased the watch for me, and I must say Paul Smith where fantastic. I had a helpful lady at head office contacting all their distributors to help find a replacement that they may have had in stock and I had the shop staff at Covent Garden calling all their shops to try to find one as they had confirmed they had only had that one watch in and would not be able to get another one.  Days past and Paul Smith contacted me to say they had found one at a shop in Birmingham which was held in stock due to a stock error and had never been sold. I drove to Birmingham that weekend and purchased it at a delightfully inflated price, but Paul Smith where able to confirm this was the last one available in the country. Weeks past and I went on wearing my reaplcment watch until I got home from London late one night and decided to go to Wagammas for dinner and didn’t want to cook. My girlfriend and I ordered our food and waited for it to arrive. When it did arrive it looked great, just what we needed, something on the waiter caught my eye as he handed me my food…….he was wearing my watch !

Now how can I be sure that this was my watch I hear you ask, the answer is, I wasn’t. However the fact that this watch was quite rare (250 Units made I believe) and the city of Bath where I live is a very small city…..what are the odds of someone else in the same city having the same watch as me…..and for it to be presented in front of me a few weeks after I had had mine stolen. I took a gambled, waited for the waiter to be on his own and went to speak to him, I commented that I liked his watch, where did he get it ? The waiter told me his Girlfriend worked for Paul Smith in London about two months ago, however I had had my watch stolen about two months ago now, I also know that I spoke to the only girl who worked at the only Paul Smith shop in London to have stocked the watch, and she said they had only had the one watch in and that it was me who bought it ! Now I know he’s lying I pressed some more and made a schoolboy error in my questioning, partly down to the anger at talking tot he guy who had stolen my watch. I commented that it was very nice and that I’d recently had a watch exactly like that stolen from my local Fitness First gym. The waiter informed me that he too was a member of Fitness First (moron) and the “Stuff gets stolen from there all the time”.

With this in mind – I spoke to the police the next morning and provided them with the serial number for the watch which was held on file with Paul Smith and registered and gave them details of the waiter, his gym status and everything I knew. They checked his gym access and he was one of the 3 – 4 guys left in the gym that night. The next day the Police went to Wagammas to interview the waiter and find out his shift pattern, home address and details. From that point on the waiter didn’t return to work and was signed off as “sick”, he disapeared from his home address and was never “home” according to his house mate. Numerous phone calls, house visits and work visits by the police always resulted in a dead end of “he’s not here”. From my point of view this becoming increasing frustrating. Around three weeks later I got a phone call from a new police officer, a different officer than the exceptionally hard chasing officer already on the case informing me that they would step up their methods to speak to the waiter as he was now wasting police time by giving them the run around. A bit of pressure on his house mate for wasting police time and a quick background check on his parents showed that he had “done a runner” to London after realising he had been busted for the watch incident. The police spoke to his parents and explained that unless he contacted them the charges would get worse and that dodging them like this was just going to make things worse and they would not just “go away”.

Shortly after this the waiter got in contact with the police and admited to the cime and agreed to come into Bath Police station to accept being charged with theft. It turns out before he had done a runner he had given the watch to a friend to hand into the police station as lost property, his thinking being the police would contact me to say they had found my watch, and that if I had my watch back, the watch he was wearing could not have been mine and the police would go away. A little pressure on his friend with a receiving stolen goods charge made his friend grass him up in addition to his own confession.

He was charged and convicted and fined /cautioned at Bath Police station two weeks after, where I also got my watch back

Cloned Watches ?

The sad thing is, I was left with two watches, and the most annoying thing is there is no obligation for the waiter to even contribute anything back for the payment, despite having searched for a replacment, having to pay over the odds for it and drive to Birmingham for the pleasure of picking it up thanks to this theif – yes, thats what he is, just to be clear a confirmed thief. The police where going to do a “conditional” warning where he only got a warning IF he paid a set ammount to go some way to offset the victims trouble, which I thought was quite nice, I knew I wouldn’t get the full price of the watch back from him, he couldn’t afford it to be blunt. but I thought a gesture that would skint him for a week so he couldn’t go out in London would be nice, but the police bottled this and just gave him a warning. I’m delighted to have the original watch back as it’s the “real” watch, I’m just dissapointed that a guy can send the police on a wild goose chase for two months at least, waste resources, lie, involve other people to lie for him…and most importantly commit a cime, and get away with a talking to – no fine, yet if I speed on the motorway, I get fined, and penalty points that have a factor on my job and my car insurance price on top of the original fine. Doesn’t seem the most balanced system does it ?