RESIDENTS of a leafy London street claimed this week that thieves were targeting their homes because it had been used as a setting in the popular TV show Ted Lasso.
Hmmm. I’m not sure this is the reason, because so far as I can tell, every house in every leafy street is currently being targeted by thieves.
AlamyHouses were targeted in London’s Richmond Green[/caption]
GettyThere have been claims thieves were targeting homes on a street used in Ted Lasso, featuring Hannah Waddingham[/caption]
I have a friend in leafy Hampstead who tells me that every other night, he’s woken by a neighbour’s burglar alarm. And then about four hours after the place has been ransacked, he’s woken again, by the sound of approaching sirens as the (not so) emergency services arrive.
Even out in the leafy sticks where I live, things have recently got completely out of hand.
Only last weekend, a mate came round to say thieves had cut the wires to his security lighting and alarm system and broken into his barn.
They were disturbed, the police came and that was the end of that.
But no. After the police had gone, the robbers went back to the scene of the crime and helped themselves to his quad bike and motorcycle.
I guess the problem is simple. The crims know that even if they are caught, which is highly unlikely, they can claim to have asthma, and they’ll get a small fine and a new inhaler.
Which has got everyone I know talking about what can be done.
Some suggest clubbing together with their neighbours to pay for a private security team to patrol their street at night.
But mostly, these private security guys are a bit too fat for hand-to-hand combat.
And sometimes, they tip off the burglars when you’re out.
A dog? I know one man who lets an extremely aggressive Alsatian patrol his farm yard at night.
But most dogs I know can be bought off with a biscuit.
Another friend wondered in the pub last week if we should all load our shotguns with rock salt cartridges and sleep with them under our beds.
Another, who has been burgled three times, wondered if something with more stopping power than salt might be better.
But then we read this week about an elderly couple in Nottinghamshire who were robbed of all their jewellery in a raid.
And when the police eventually came round, they confiscated the husband’s perfectly legal guns and spent hours quizzing him about them.
I can sort of see why. Because we are fast approaching the day when a homeowner is going to shoot a burglar.
And he’ll be arrested. And it’ll be Tony Martin all over again. And there will be an outcry.
By far the best solution, I think, is to explain to the constabulary that they can only investigate a hate crime incident on social media if every burglary on their patch has been cleared up.
And to the judiciary that burglars need to spend some time in a cell with a burly man called Omar the Strangler.
Not sent home with some food and a gift voucher.
HMS Maggie is astute thinking
Crown Copyright 2009Plans to name the Royal Navy’s brand-new Astute class submarine HMS Agincourt have been scrapped[/caption]
Getty – ContributorFormer Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher[/caption]
TO avoid annoying the French, plans to name the Royal Navy’s brand-new Astute class submarine HMS Agincourt have been scrapped.
And it’ll now be called HMS Achilles.
Is that a good idea? I only ask because Achilles is famed for having a much-publicised weak spot. And I wouldn’t want to serve on a boat with a vulnerable ankle. You might as well call it HMS Colander.
The Americans name their most powerful vessels after commanders and presidents. They even have a USS Winston S Churchill.
And I’m wondering if that wouldn’t be a good idea here too.
HMS Thatcher has a ring, don’t you think?
A.I. is not so clever
APDeepSeek claims to have never heard of any protests in Tiananmen Square[/caption]
I’VE tried to be worried about AI but I’m struggling.
We are told that soon you will be able to have a conversation with your own mother and simply not know she’s been artificially generated.
“She” would have instantaneous access to every fact on the internet and all the emails and texts you’ve ever exchanged and all your photo albums, so “she” would know everything your mum knows.
And we’ve been told to worry about what would happen if a politician did this. Used an AI image of themself in interviews.
Imagine the power they’d have if we thought they knew everything.
Yes, but here’s the problem. The French government recently launched their own AI platform to rival early American dominance in the field, and it had to be closed down this week after it told one user the atomic bomb was invented by King Herod and another that cow eggs are good to eat.
And then came news that the Chinese have launched a free global service called DeepSeek.
Which claims to have never heard of any protests in Tiananmen Square. And says Taiwan is a part of China.
Beer’s to the future
AlamyYoung people are giving up drink in droves[/caption]
ALL week, we have been told that young people are giving up drink in droves.
A picture is painted of a whole generation who spend their weekends hosting skipping tutorials on TikTok.
And their holidays working on their Instagram tans.
There’s no room for booze when you have a lifestyle like that.
Hmmm. I’m not sure we should believe this though, because at a horse-based country event last weekend, everyone was treated to the spectacle of a tipsy young man trying and eventually failing to stay upright in a muddy car park.
As he went down, he had a phone in one hand and a fag in the other and, because inebriated teenage males are poor at prioritising, he decided to cushion the fall using his face.
And then, he used his chin to drag himself across 30 yards of mud to drier ground where he could get back to his feet.
I have to say. A guy like this – he gives me hope.
Because I’d far rather trust the future of humankind to someone who’s been there and done that than someone who spent their teenage years eating a lettuce on a beach, for clicks.
Taxing times
GettyA farmer got round Rachel Reeves’ new inheritance tax rules[/caption]
I HEARD this week about a farmer who’s found an ingenious way of getting round the ridiculous new inheritance tax rules dreamed up by Rachel From Accounts.
It’s complicated but it’s worth paying attention.
The farm belongs to Grandad who’s an elderly widower.
But, as is the way on many farms across the country, it’s worked by his son.
And what they’re doing is this. Son divorces his wife who then marries his father. This means that when Dad dies, it passes to her and no tax is due.
She then remarries the son and Bob’s your uncle.
I explained this to a farming mate the other day who looked crestfallen. “But I’ve only got a daughter,” he said.
Relax mate. She divorces her husband and then you marry him.
We live in modern times. That’s allowed now. And it’d be worth it, just to see the cross look on Ms Reeves’ face.
Demos away
AlamyEd Miliband is doing more to just stop oil than those pink-haired glue enthusiasts ever did[/caption]
NOW that there’s a ceasefire in Gaza and Ed Miliband is doing more to just stop oil than those pink-haired glue enthusiasts ever did, I’m wondering what the nation’s mad people will find to protest about next.
The renaming of the Gulf of Mexico?
Social issues in the remote islands off Scotland? The Greenland issue?
Just so long as it’s really far away, I don’t care.
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