Category: Petty crime

Avatar ABOFB: Nip to the loo

Welcome to back to a breath of fresh beans, this week we’re just going to nip to the loo, don’t worry, not literally (we did that before we started recording).

Suggestions in this pod are:

  • Weird
  • Posh
  • Nosy
  • Espionagey

Avatar Do not remove

This sign at work has not been successful in its aims.

Presumably, at some point, another bin will be provided by whoever considers it vitally important that this little-used basement corridor always has a bin available at this precise location. When that happens I suggest they adopt one, some or all of the following suggestions for improved security:

  • Add “on pain of death” to the end of the sign
  • Add a nice positive thumbs up symbol to the sign
  • Have a speaker playing the sign’s message out loud on a loop in case the bin was taken by a blind person
  • Keep the existing wording and layout of the sign, but enlarge it so that it covers the entire wall
  • Use plainer language that low-life thieves will understand, like “get your stinking hands off my bin, you pilfering shitbags”
  • Make multiple versions of the sign and use them to plaster the bin to the wall like papier-mâché
  • Apply camouflage netting to the bin, thus rendering it invisible
  • Put another more desirable bin next to the bin as bait

Avatar Why would you buy this?

We all know that I have a turbulent past (turbulent, I say!) with spending my disposable income. Kev has gotten so mad in the past based on my “pointless purchases” that he literally cannot even sometimes. It’s all heartbreaking stuff.

As we wandered around the slightly freezing Lake District in mid-November, me forgetting a proper coat and taking a photo where my nose looks as bright and pink as a carnation, I came across the following in a shop. It was hidden away towards the back along with some other shonky and partially damaged goods:

Now I’m one for a bargain but unless I have another set of draughts with only the black pieces, possibly acquired from a rival store with a similar problem, then surely this is going to remain unsold for some time.

Did they eat all the black pieces thinking they were licorice? Were they stolen by a deranged kleptomaniac with specific requirements? Did anyone get a video?

We will never know the full story and normally I would put good money on them still being there the next time we visit, however human beings are weird and I reckon someone will snap them up sharpish. Possibly as a joke present.

Ack, that should have been me!

Avatar Heist movie

Right, lads. Thanks for gathering here in the seedy basement criminal headquarters round the back of the seedy basement criminal billiards hall. Grab a cocktail stick to chew. I’ve spread out a blueprint on the table so gather round and have a look.

As you all know, this is the big one, the heist of the year. We’re going to lift four million nicker in used five pence coins from the Coinstar machine by the tills in Morrisons.

First off, we all need code names. Kevil, you’re Mr Blancmange. Ian, we’ll call you Mr Trifle. I’ll be going by the name Mr Bread and Butter Pudding. No arguing now, those are the names, if you don’t like it you can walk out the door and miss out on the biggest haul of loose change this country has ever seen. Alright? Good. We’re all in.

Here’s the plan. Meet round the side of the Morrisons petrol station at 3.15. Mr Trifle and Mr Blancmange will be at the air machine feigning an argument about the correct tyre pressure for the rear wheels of a heavily loaded Dacia Sandero in cold weather. I’ll be in the shop buying a bag of Jelly Tots. If I come out and show you a car wash ticket for a number four programme with hot wax, the game is on.

At that point we all get into the Sandero sharpish. Mr Blancmange will drive. Mr Trifle will jump in the boot so the car doesn’t look too full. I’ll sit in the passenger seat and crack open the Jelly Tots. Then we swing it round to the front of Morrisons and ditch the wheels in a parent and child bay. They’ve got extra room for the doors to open and they’re right by the entrance. I don’t care if we get a ticket.

From there we make it to the Coinstar machine under cover of a montage. Mr Trifle will play in some lively montage music on a bluetooth speaker. Then we get indoors in five montage clips.

  • One, Mr Blancmange slides the stack of shopping baskets in the way of the automatic doors to wedge them open.
  • Two, Mr Trifle grabs us three copies of the free monthly Morrisons recipe magazine to hide our faces by pretending to read them.
  • Three, I’ll offer the security guard some Jelly Tots so he’s not looking at the CCTV.
  • Four, Mr Blancmange grabs a 10p plastic bag from the self checkouts and covers up the camera.
  • And five, Mr Trifle humorously pauses by the display of flowers to pull a rose from a bouquet and tuck it into the buttonhole on his suit jacket.

When we get to the Coinstar machine we have sixty seconds to get it away before the checkout supervisor sees what we’re up to and raises the alarm. Mr Blancmange and I will lift the floor panel next to it, revealing a manhole down to the drains. Mr Trifle will then announce that he’s “got this” and we will leave it to him to push the machine into the hole.

When that’s done we jump down after it and ride it away through the sewers like a big cash-filled surfboard. The current will tip us out at the riverside where we can get a number 65 bus back here to the lair.

Any questions? No? Good. In that case, you put your suits on and I’ll get the Sandero out of the lock up. Everyone synchronise watches. See you outside in five.

Avatar Dear Beans… Furious Locker Fetish Frenzy

I have been meaning to make a confession for some time now because it’s happened again and it happened right under my nose. I didn’t mean it to happen and it did. Oh, what a fragile and tragic series of events it was!

Some years ago I “purchased” a locker from a local art gallery. By “purchase” I mean I paid the £1.00 to use the locker and then kept on using it. It was practically a purchase after all because money changed hands, they got something and I got something. I would return to the locker to store things inside, hiding them away like a squirrel burying nuts for the winter. After several months of this I returned to a sign telling me that my purchase had been rescinded and the art gallery had taken the locker back by force. This was completely unacceptable and in my outrage I fled the scene and never returned. I didn’t agreed to these terms and yet I was being forced to comply with them. Absolute b*stards.

All those lovely trinkets of mine were lost. I had several diamond necklaces, a couple of Monets (rolled up very tightly and very carefully of course), a wallet full of oil and a Chinese urn signed by every member of the Ming dynasty amongst other things. Priceless.

In my new place of work I was assigned a locker. Actually, it’s less a locker and more lockable filing cabinet. It’s mine though and I keep only the essentials in there in case it gets taken away from me again. It’s a very busy office so the majority of the lockers are already taken by other members of staff however a few nights ago I was walking through and noticed that I was making a mental note of the odd ones that were still free. I had previously borrowed one to keep my gym items in until I worked out how to use the lockers at the gym (that’s another story in itself). When I returned to my locker the next day though I realised that the one adjacent to it was free. How had I not realised this before? Why was this only being brought to my attention now?

I took the key and kept it. Obviously the idea of knocking through the wall to make it a double locker is not permittable but it’s still good to have a spare. Is it though? Am I only coveting the locker because I can and because of what happened previously? Am I destined to continue to take lockers that don’t belong to me? I don’t need it and yet I keep it as mine.

I need some advice so please help in any way you can.

Yours stealingly

Fencepost Nundidge

Avatar More culture in the workplace

In May last year, you might remember that I brought a little classical beauty into the lives of my work colleagues when I anonymously gifted the Mona Lisa to the men’s toilets on the third floor.

I was under no illusion that this artwork would be permanently displayed, and so it was little surprise that, after ten or eleven months, it vanished without warning, leaving an empty frame to greet toilet-goers once more. To be honest, I was pleased it lasted as long as it did.

My quest to bring culture to the workplace has not ended there, though. No, it continues, with renewed vigour. Since the Mona Lisa was taken down I’ve chosen to assume that the Toilet Overlords at work aren’t keen on renaissance realism, so my latest contribution is something more abstract.

For gentlemen on their way to their most personal ablutions, I now proudly present Piet Mondrian’s Composition London 1940-42.

Avatar Floor Pasta – a short play

The scene reveals a man, a woman and a teenage boy in the kitchen of a semi-detached house. A television can be heard coming from the living room. Two or three dogs are roaming the kitchen floor looking for scraps.

S: Go on, tell your dad about the floor pasta.
I: The what?
R: It’s because I brought home a packet of spaghetti that I found on the floor. It’s still sealed, it’s not minging or anything.
I: I see. Dubious but still useful I suppose.
R: Oh come on, don’t tell me you wouldn’t because I know you would! It’s free food and it’s perfectly usable.
I: Whereabouts did you find this?
R: When I was walking home from school.
I: A lone packet of spaghetti just lying there on the floor.
R: In the street, yeah. I looked around to see if anyone had dropped it but I was the only one there.

Later that evening. Still in the kitchen.

I: We’re a little concerned about the floor pasta. Are you sure you didn’t steal it? Come on now, if you’re going to risk going to jail for a 50p pack of spaghetti then I think we need to get you to a psychologist.
R: I knew you would do this.
S: If you’re a klepto just own up to it, we won’t judge you.
R: This is nonsense.
I: You have to admit the story sounds a bit too convenient, a bit too farfetched if you ask me.
R: Yes it does but it’s true, well, apart from the bit about finding it on the floor.
I: Come again?
R: I didn’t find it on the floor I found it in a trolley.
I: Here we go.
S: So it wasn’t on the floor, you stole it from a trolley in Sainsburys?
R: The trolley wasn’t in Sainsburys, it was in an alley.
I: This sounds even less believable. Which alley?
R: You know the one that’s equidistant between Sainsburys and Dhillons fish shop?
I: No, surprisingly not. I’m not out measuring equal distances between two places near where you live.
R: It was a trolley there and it was full of pasta.
I: Full of pasta, a trolley full of pasta lying in an alley sort of behind a supermarket, just left there for anyone to take.
R: Yes. I checked and it’s in date, it’s not as if it was out of date goods or anything.
S: So with all that pasta available to take you only took one small packet of spaghetti?
R: Yes! I didn’t want to be greedy.
S: This is sounding less believable the more he says.
I: You’re telling me.
R: Look, I know you don’t believe me and that’s fine. This isn’t the first time it’s happened anyway.

The man and the woman look at each other with the same confused look.

S: So how many times has it happened?
R: <thinks> about nine or ten.
I: So nine or ten times you’ve been walking from school and you’ve come across a shopping trolley filled to the brim with pasta and this is the first time you’ve thought to mention it?
R: Like you would have believed me anyway…

Lights fade.

The End.