Springtime and music pirates

Springtime is coming! Bono shouted this during Live Aid in 1985 during Feed the World, even though it is a song about Christmas. This exclamation is made even more puzzling by the fact that Live Aid took place in the summer, July 13th to be precise. So even though Bono was completely wrong at the time, it is an accurate assessment of the weather that greeted me this morning on leaving the flat. The sun was out this morning, at least it was up there somewhere among the clouds, and there is the growing feeling of winter leaving us once more. Hopefully. This is Scotland I suppose. Our summers usually last approximately one week, or if your thinking back to 2008, probably around three days.
As I thought this getting into my car I turned on the radio to hear the one and only Irish singer once more in another repeat on Radio 1 of the latest U2 single. 'No Line on the Horizon' hit the shops yesterday and is apparently another big seller after only one day on the shelves. Unable to purchase until thursday,however, and am steadfastly refusing to download it, unlike certain other friends of mine (they shall go unnamed). One of them has even had the album for at least two weeks. This is exactly the reason why the music and movie industry is suffering at the moment. All the pirates wandering the web, illegally plundering the downloads for their treasures. I work with a few of them too, I should know. Limping into work everyday, all innocent, as if butter wouldn't melt. I'll watch them as they go about their business, working away at their desks, growling abuse down their phones through their rotten teeth and feeding their parrots perched on their monitors. Okay, they're not all that bad. Some of them do floss apparently. Not that I'd know, of course (I prefer a simple brush with Colgate and a quick rinse with Plax myself). You used to hear of these raids down the Glasgow Barrowlands every now and again where Police would swoop in on the occasional Saturday morning and seize thousands of pounds worth of pirated material. As much as I liked getting the bootlegs I used to dread buying them. You'd approach the stall hesitantly, looking round you at all times, giving the occasional peer over the shoulder. You'd then set to work, ferociously flicking through the mountains of CDs at breakneck pace until you found the one you were after. You'd throw the money at the smelly owner of the stall and quickly hide the CD under your jacket and slink off into the Glasgow market crowds. Maybe buy some doughnuts on the way. I always hated the idea of the police disturbing me as I found the rare bootleg version of Bowie's original cut of Scarey Monsters or some lost live album from Talking Heads' past. "Officer, please, this is listed as the fifth rarest bootleg of all time!". "Put it down son, your nicked". It wasn't so much the nicking it was more the fact I'd found something worth buying.
Most of the smelly stall owners in the Barras were always suspicious at the best of times anyway. One Saturday morning, during my time at Art School, I was quietly sitting drawing a book stall when all of a sudden the lady owner realised I was there and started hurling abuse as she ran at me. Apparently she 'knew my game'? I had not been aware of playing any game at the time, though I was a bit of a Games Workshop nut at the time. Still, you don't expect that kind of abuse for that do you? Maybe a bit of a slagging from your mates (if you have any) but not an attack from a female vigilante book stall owner. Almost dropping my sketch book with alarm I just managed to get away from the crazy old bird feeling a little more hesitant to sketch the market scenes afterwards. Maybe she thought I was an undercover agent for Strathclyde police or something. Which means she must have been feeling rather guilty about something. Perhaps her books were off the back of a lorry? It was a shame really as it was a bloody good book stall. There's hardly any decent second hand book shops or stalls left. Sometimes I wonder into the Oxfams and Cancer Research charity shops for a browse though. Most of the time their shelves are only filled with fifteen year old Guiness Book of Records, Maeve Binchy novels or the Daniel O'Donnell - My Story. My Great Aunt Mina used to go to that cheery, irish warbler's concerts. We used to joke that she threw her knickers at him on stage. She would join us with a smile and laugh rather uncomfortably, then go strangely quiet...