Random murders are exceptionally rare - there are 9 million people living here - some perspective is necessary. Our murder rate is far lower than most capital cities.

I get regularly driven to distraction by a girl from Ilford - not sure she drives me to murderous feelings tho'. Yet....

Gang-related murders/shootings tend to happen in waves or spates - funnily enough in threes - a bit like that old saying about bad luck.In Cardiff about four years back, three people were shot by the same gang, on the same stretch of road in one week. I had the misfortune of being in the area at the time - and was also shot at but their aim was a bit off, thankfully.Similarly, when I lived in Brixton, murders and shootings tended to have a pattern to them. I remember a spate of shootings - some fatal, some not - all happening in the space of one week. Have a look at the pattern, study it and maybe you could run a book on where the next kiling will be ?Alternatively, console yourself with the thought that you don't live on the 'most lethal street in the world' - which is somewhere in Miami, and boasts an average of 12 murders a week !!!

Zanx - You want to move 40 miles up the A12. The worst crime I can remember in my village was the shocking tale of the old woman conned out of her pension. That was about 6 years ago. Then there was the newly planted tree that was vandalised about 2 months ago. No wonder the Essex police have so much time to spare for speed traps and the like. Maybe we should all commit more murders and robberies - give the police something to do.

hellonweelsuk wroteYou'd be safer out in the sticks (unless you happen to have four feet & cloven hoofs)! ...but strange things go on after dark.... i live in the sticks and the guy who lived opposite me was murdered last xmas. he was a junkie and was taken out of the house, had the shit beat out of him. then he was injected with a lethal dose of something and dumped back over the road.2 days later his missus was found dead in the phone box down the road.not nice at all