Who needs cable TV? Last night we had a live edition of “Cops” right across the alley from Chez Dog.

The Party Palace, like the Mos Eisley spaceport, has always been a wretched hive of scum and villainy. And as the man says, it’s the quiet ones you want to keep one eye on, because the most recent residents have been as quiet as they come.

Until last night. A few uniforms in patrol cars rolled up the alley with lights off and then, with a SWAT team, commenced inquiring about the whereabouts of one of the two-legged roaches infesting a one-room cottage on the property, a gent who happens to be the son of the woman who owns the towering pile of horror-movie house across the driveway.

Rarely have I seen so much weight brought to so little purpose. No doors were kicked in, no dogs of war let slip; neither were Tasers, .40 cals, tear-gas canisters nor any other weapons deployed. The firehouse down the street contributed a truck whose lights turned the property into a Hollywood soundstage, and a couple of minor characters were hustled off, stage right, but the target of the op’ remains at large, as far as I can tell.

And the young lady who chauffeurs him and his mates about seems to come and go without let or hindrance, though her car is showing signs of wear and tear. She’s popped round at least twice today, and one reliable source had her tottering down the street looking like she’d been shot at and missed, then shit at and hit.

Heroin, suggests another reliable source. Lovely. I might have learned something from having William Burroughs in the vicinity, but this lot looks less than literary to me.