The Lighter Side of Car Crime

At least if you're not the owner of this Range-Rover that is:

Today's BBC story is here.  I seriously hope that whoever owns this is a love-cheat.  It's not even an ordinary Range-Rover - it's a Revere Range-Rover.  If you haven't heard of Revere (like I hadn't) they are one of these up-market tuner/bespoke customiser companies a bit like Overfinch.  The story first started trending on Twitter.

Meanwhile, yesterday, the BBC ran with this story.  It also involves Twitter.  It is about a car thief being disturbed while trying to perpetrate his crime.  This caused him to leave behind his bag.  This bag contained a balaclava, a glass hammer and a couple of packets of popular cheesy snacks.  Cheesy snacks that look a lot nicer  in real life than in this picture tweeted by the investigating police officer:

I have to say, I definitely prefer Quavers to Wotsits but since both appear in the picture, I'm sure the officers enjoyed them whilst also taunting the criminal on Twitter, first offering them back, then admitting they had eaten them whilst extracting his DNA from the balaclava.

Police with a sense of humour.

I like that.

I also like the New Zealand Police who have taken part in the current "Running Man" Internet challenge craze (Nope, never heard if it before tonight) whereby they dance to a particular track and then challenge others to do the same.

Here's their very good effort:

And they then went on to challenge several Australian Police Forces plus the NYPD and the Isles of Scilly Police.

The NYPD responded thusly:

But why pick on the Isles of Scilly Police?  After all, the Isles of Scilly are a very small group of islands off the Cornish Coast at Lands End.

Well their response is probably a clue:

I note that the gauntlet has been laid down by https://www.facebook.com/NZPolice/ for a dance off with us. I also note that they can draw on a supporting cast of thousands of officers and staff whereas we have a modest team of five and occasionally a cat. Our combined age on this small rock in the Atlantic (including feline years) is over 300. Ours is not to dance or body pop ever since the thespian PC Mat 'Flashdance' Collier left these shores several years ago. When we do so, we now do levity in the medium of cake.
We wish NZ Police the very best with their recruitment drive. It certainly is a remarkable career even if you have to do it upside down dancing on the ceiling.

Sgt Colin 'Dad Dance' Taylor

And their Facebook page is well worth a like.

Pilot Error

Actually it's Driver Error - I just happened to find this story whilst flicking through the Virginian Pilot - the prime news source for Norfolk, VA, USA and its environs.

Here's the link.

It tells the story of two young car thieves who chanced upon a Chevrolet Impala sat at the back of a Post Office with the engine running.

The only occupant was an eight-year-old boy.

So they took the car, dropping him off at school on the way.  I suppose as car thieves go, they were either reasonably nice or reasonably inept.  They abandoned the car later on and completely missed the iPhone that had been left in there that was used to trace the car.

The car owner, however, does not seem very nice - to the environment and probably to her employers either - or to her child really.

It seems that every working day she would have to be at work 20 to 30 minutes before he had to be at school, so she parked the car outside the post office where she worked and let him sit inside, with the engine running listening to music.  Then, presumably, she would sneak out of work to drive him to school.  If her employers were not aware of this before, they are now.

The picture with the article is just a boring shot of the Norfolk Post Office:

So here's a picture of my favourite person from Norfolk (albeit the wrong Norfolk for this story) and an Alvis: