Beggars you say? Wearing gorilla suits?

Sadly there is no authentic 'as-it-happened' news picture to go with this one.

The man in the suit is a fun-runner picked from our picture archive.

Anyway, this is about the latest twist on the travelling eastern European criminal thing we've been covering for some time now.

They're implicated in things like purse-dipping, baby-in-your-face begging, shoplifting and hawking particularly nasty fake gold jewellery around the city centre.

The headline to this post pretty much sums up what they were up to in this case - they were dressed as gorillas and they were planning to hassle shoppers for money.

I was walking through town heading for the office when I bumped into some police officers having their pic taken for an advert that's coming the Merc's way.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. All ad revenue is gratefully received.

As the group broke up I chased a police officer I wanted to speak to.

But no, he was off because he'd spotted a couple of people dressed in gorilla suits.

They were just sitting there in High Street and Humberstone Gate and he wanted to know who they were.

Because of the General Election I thought they were merry pranksters.

It became apparent though they were in town - from Manchester funnily enough, apparently the home town of the city's newest street girls - to ask shoppers if they wanted to pay for pics of their kids alongside men dressed in shabby suits.

It didn't sound like the smartest ruse for parting people with their money.

I have no idea if it would have been a winner because this pair had just arrived and hadn't got down to business when the police intervened.

Funnily enough, they didn't have a camera.

Anyway, the police told them the score and advised them to head out of town.

I've held off from writing the story because I'm desperate to get a pic of them in action.

But it looks like they've listened to the police and have gone back to Manchester.

I like odd stories - how often does a reporter get to write about beggars in fancy dress?

Not often.

How often does a reporter get to write an intro along the lines of "A shoplifter squeezed breast milk at a store detective..."?

Again, not often.

I had the pleasure of writing the above once. And I still remember it fondly.

I'm only human.