up a ladder with some wire cutters

Last night I walked home from the train station through the town centre. There was an alarm going off at an estate agent’s shop on Commercial Road. That was about 6.15pm. This morning I walked the same way back to the train station and the alarm was still going off at about 7.15am. That must have made the neighbours happy! You can see the shop, “belgravi-lettings” and the alarm on streetview. If you zoom in, it looks like there is a wire hanging from the bottom of the alarm box. If I lived there I’d be up a ladder with some wire cutters.

Here’s a quirky little story from today’s Daily Mail. Apparently a Brazillian councillor has become aware of a growing number of brides in his town walking up the aisle without underwear. How he knows this is going on is not made clear, but he’s convinced that it is, and that it should stop. Such is his concern, he’s proposing legislation to ban brides from approaching the alter without requisite garments. Which begs the question, how would you enforce such a law? I have visions of the guy commissioning floor mounted cameras or something. You’d think a councillor would have more important things to worrry about.

Antony Wobble-Thompson seems to have got himself arrested for shop lifting from Tesco. It’s odd isn’t it that someone so seemingly successful should be caught swiping wine and cheese from the local suppermarket. He was apparently deliberately omitting to scan items at the self-service checkouts. I have to admit, I’ve thought abuot this myself while standing in the queue. The problem is that items are weighed. If you put an unscanned item in your bag it sets off an alarm and the checkout operative has to come over to reset you. It’s also smart enough to know if you scan one thing and then put another item in your bag. I haven’t come up with a method sufficiently robust to try. Sorry, I don’t have much sympathy for Tesco.