This is actually quite tragic and not Raoul Moat-ly funny.

Oh dear. The enjoyment of seeing the Keystone Cops police running around the countryside looking for Raoul Moat is over after he killed himself.

It brings to an end a week of tragedy for the relatives of those involved, but also a week of blanket media coverage.

Any Tom, Dick or Harry with a link to Raoul Moat, no matter how tenuous, wheeled out in front the TV cameras or interviewed by the newspapers, to give their half-arsed psychological profiling of this man, who they met once. Or twice. Ten years ago. Hurray for journalism.

For example, Yvette Foreman crawled out of the woodwork to get her name in the news. She spent weekends camping with him when the pair were both were in their 20’s. In their 20’s? Now let’s see Raoul was 37 so that was 17 years ago. And do you know what she said? This is priceless.

From the BBC News web site:

She said her ex-boyfriend had been a “lovely lad” and a practical joker who was “daft as a brush”.

Yes, thanks love that really helps.

From the Telegraph quoting another attention seeker, Mr Herdman.

“I saw him running along that wall and open the greenhouse door. I was looking out of the landing window and saw him distinctly,” he said.

“He was wearing dark clothing, he was crouching down behind the wall trying to hide himself.”

When Mr Herdman’s friend returned to inspect the greenhouse he noticed that the only ripe tomato in his crop had disappeared.

Three murders and the theft of a tomato. Quick lock the bastard up¡

But it doesn’t take an ordinary member of the public to make a twat of themselves, a celebrity can do it just as effectively. Enter Paul Gascoigne, who in a moment of genius turns up during negotions with…

can of lager, some chicken, a mobile phone and something to keep warm

Yeah, alcohol is exactly what he needs right now. But Gazza, what else can you do to help?

I just want to give him some therapy and say ‘come on Moaty, it’s Gazza’.

He is alright – simply as that and I am willing to help him. I have come all the way from Newcastle to Rothbury to find him, have a chat with him.

Excuse me, I just have to ROTFLMAO a second.

I guarantee, Moaty, he won’t shoot me. I am good friends with him.

Shame.

Some bozo thought a 24 hour news channel would be a great idea, but when there’s fuck all else happening, you have to pad this shit out for as long as possible. In the case of Sky and ITV, you also throw in as much sensationalist bullshit as possible.

If you don’t have any concrete news, why not speculate? The BBC says:

Unconfirmed reports suggested a friend of Moat was also brought inside the police cordon to try to persuade him to surrender

It’s pathetic.

Anyway, that’s my rant over with, I’ll leave you with something more interesting about this story.

Raoul moat – the 24th englishman not to get to the end of the World Cup finals.