allegedly

lorry during robbery on security camera
The biggest ever cash robbery in UK history took place a couple of days ago near Tonbridge, in Kent, which is south east of London. The ruthless armed robbers stole circa £50m ($80m) and had held family members hostage at gunpoint and tied up members of the Tonbridge depot.

Now we hear that two days later a woman has been detained by police at a building society in south east London, when trying to pay in rather large sums of used banknotes, some of which allegedly had bands around them bearing the word 'Tonbridge'.

These hardened criminals have not watched enough movies and certainly not any Ealing Comedies to fall for that ol' trick. Another interesting element is the alleged recent lifestyle change of one of the members of the depot who has apparently recently placed a deposit on a rather expensive Spanish villa.

And £50m is a pile of banknotes 38 stories high, weighing between one and two tons.

I shall watch this unfold (unravel?) with interest.

Update 1

Photofit of one of the robbers pretending to be a policeman and image of Michael Caine as underworld crook Carter, from Get Carter

Update 2

Now the police have found a white transit van with some reasonable quantities of money in it parked at Ashford International Hotel, which is adjacent to the fast Eurostar rail link to France and Belgium.

The hotel is a good, oh, 20 miles from the robbery scene and is the big well-appointed hotel by the side of the rail link which has one station in the whole of England apart from London.

Here is my simplified map (distances in miles and all major twists and turns shown):

London-50->Tonbridge Robbery-20->Ashford-20->Dover->France

See the news video report

Tag: robbery, heist, Tonbridge, banknotes

фотографии

фотографии seems to be the Russian word for photograph. Debra says she doesn't speak Russian; I thought a quick expedition to Russia would be interesting, so I took a Russian word from an old post and dropped it into Technorati.

Bingo, it found some links. I selected the first one, found rusprimavera and browsed a few interesting photographs. Then I found a word that looks like photograph (фотографии) and selected it also on technorati. I now have an interesting selection of 'life in russia' pictures and accompanying blogs. Quirky, but fun.

Tag: фотографии, mad scientist

seven detags

I got tagged today by debra, who couldn't think of anything to write home about. And on a Thursday - which is really a Thursday Thirteen day. So I'll answer debra's Seven today and pass the tag along.



And as seven is such a powerful number, here are the seven chakras: Muladhara, Svadhisthana, Manipura, Anahata, Vishudda, Ajna, Sahasrara.

Seven things to do:
1 Make a difference
2 Perform a live gig at a music festival
3 Visit Tokyo
4 Get a book published
5 Cross Canada on a road trip
6 Help make Christina Nott famous
7 Make magic a constant part of my life

Seven things I can’t do:
1 sing convincingly
2 eat shellfish
3 watch television soaps
4 drink creme de menthe
5 make a U shape with my tongue
6 most blog tags
7 construction involving wood
8 count accurately (I'm fibbing)

Seven things that attract me to my mate:
1 love
2 caring
3 humour
4 sensuality
5 sharing
6 drive
7 opinions

Seven books I love:
1 Through the looking glass - Lewis Carroll
2 Gravity's rainbow - Thomas Pynchon
3 Girlfriend in a coma - Douglas Coupland
4 Pattern Recognition - William Gibson
5 Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Haruki Murakami
6 The Prophet - Khalil Gibran
7 Foucault's Pendulum - Umberto Eco

Seven things I say:
1 fabullariffic
2 ta
3 there is some fun going forward
4 eek
5 hmm
6 strangely strange but oddly normal
7 yay

Seven movies I’ve loved:
1 Casablanca
2 Moulin Rouge
3 Pulp Fiction
4 Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
5 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
6 Mulholland Drive
7 Le Fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain

Seven people to tag:
1 aetheria
2 unmade bed person
3 bookgirl
4 cq
5 nikki-ann
6 laquet
7 you

roof

Julie's car is back shiny and clean, with new tyres and through it's MoT. Now we must look forward to weather which will be good enough to lower the roof!

naan

We met in the foyer of an Indian restaurant this evening for a glass of Cobra beer and then sat down with some poppadoms and raitha, followed by samosa and lal maans, with naan peshwari and rice.

zoned out

Victor arrived this morning. He'd been in Milan yesterday with Annalisa, and flew out on a late flight. There had been a baggage handler dispute so he didn't get into London until around midnight, although today's start was deliberately late to give him some time to recover because he is really still on Boston time,

My day was rammed and by the evening we were in need of some cameraderie so Victor and a few of us headed to a small nearby pub to drink some English beer, some New Zealand wine, some pleasant potato and garlic soup and to spend a couple of hours chatting before breaking fairly early to go our separate ways.

H5N1

This morning I was listening to a radio report from the Netherlands of the bird flu preventative measures now in operation. The chickens have to be kept in doors so that they can't catch anything from wild fowl. And tonight there were two birds in Hampshire,UK being examined by relevant authorities.

Most of us continue to go about our business unaffected by these often scare-mongering stories. However, it is interesting to observe the slow march of this avian flu and the related story across Europe, from July 2005 in Russia as reported in the Moscow Times. And the original diagnostics seem to go back as far as 1997. If you want the full background check out the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Tag: avian flu, bird flu, H5N1

bafta mountain

BAFTAs this evening and Jake Gyllenhall, here with Charlize Theron behind the scenes after picking up the award for Brokeback Mountain.

Ang Lee also collected one for this film in a ceremony hosted by Stephen Fry at his most oleaginous.

Tag: BAFTA, movies, Brokeback Mountain

adorable

Well, its official. I'm occasionally adorable, according to the TTLB (The Truth Laid Bear) ecosystem. As a matter of fact, for the last two weeks, I've fluctuated between flappy bird and adorable little rodent, but today I thought I'd mark the event with a picture of Dangermouse.

As we all know, DangerMouse is the World's Greatest secret agent, a mouse of many talents. Apparently born halfway up Mount Everest, he displayed his exceptional nature early in life, completing the climb to the summit of the world's highest mountain when he was only a few hours old. In spite of his foreign birthplace, DM is a true English gent, and was educated at Eton, Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, the Sorbonne and Würtembery, picking up his B.A., B.Sc., M.A., M.Sc., and Ph.D along the way. Naturally, he used these varied skills to become a government agent, defending Queen and country. He set up residence in a red pillar box located outside 221B Baker Street, London, home of another famous British hero. When danger threatened the world, he was contacted by his superior Colonel K, who would issue him with his mission.

Then DangerMouse and his trusty, if improbably incompetent assistant Penfold, would set forth in their distinctive flying car and save the day. His recurring nemesis was the toad Baron Silas Greenback and his crow lackey Stiletto; however he also faced the vampire Count Duckula, the mad composer Wufgang, the extra-terrestrial JJ Quark, Mexican El Loco, mad scientists Professor Crumhorn and Dr.Frankenstoat, and DM's own evil doppelganger, among others.

With DM, Mickey and Jerry, I am in august company.

Tag: TTLB, adorable little rodent, dangermouse

house wine

A few glasses of Bordeaux with John as we put the world right.

The bar was rammed with people, but we had a reserved table and watched as one group moved out and the evening replacements moved in.

Back at John's house I could see the effect of his major house project which has come to fruition, with a mix of Polish and Brazilian help. The descriptions reminded me of that film with Jeremy Irons as the Polish builder- Moonlighting, I think it was called. Georgina has been project managing the changes worthy of a television documentary. Georgina and Jessica arrived back shortly before I was to jump into a taxi and head for home.

Tag: wine, house renovation

thursday Thirteen (V12.0)

1. Didn't realise it was Thursday;
2. Meeting John tomorrow - I suspect a drop of wine may pass my lips;
3. Had the car back in the garage yesterday. They have fixed the thing I didnt know was broken but still need to work on the door lock, which still goes flippy of its own accord;
4. Havn't had a light in the room where the bulb blew a week ago because it uses a special transformer gizmo and the fuse holder has sort of melted; Illumination is via laptop screen;
5. I am carrying around some big sheets of paper with 'important words' which somehow need to transfer into my computer; usually I'd just take a photo, but somehow I forgot;
6. Last weekend I round tripped to Lancaster again; this week I shall stay local;
7. Getting prepped for Victor's visit next week; but I hear he is now visiting Milan first;
8. Attended a lunchtime meeting a couple of days ago (Malaysian curry) but I only ate a couple of mouthfuls because we were talking so much; I find that often happens to me;
9. There is something very weird happening to my Windows PC; something new was installed and now it has long thinking pauses;
10. At least my car is very clean now; each time it goes back to the garage, it gets a full valet service, inside and out;
11. Promised to send a Christina Nott demo to someone in Germany; will prepare it at the weekend;
12. Left home late (in daylight!) for the first time in ages;
13. I wonder why it is always difficult to think of item thirteen!

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!
1. Leanne's Thirteen!
2. Ivory Frog's Thirteen!
3. Running 2k's Thirteen!
4. Uisce's Thirteen
5. Chickadee's Thirteen!
6. Judy's Thirteen!
7. Raehan's Thirteen!
8. Lunchtruck's Thirteen!
9. Janne's Thirteen!
10. Andrea's Thirteen!
X. (leave your link in comments, I'll add you here!)

Get Leanne's Thursday Thirteen code here!
Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! Leave your link as a comment and I will link to you and you can continue the chain!

Tag: Thursday Thirteen

purple reign

Prince blasted a hole in the Brits with a rocking and bluesy guitar set including Purple Rain. Surprising that the television coverage didn't actually comment on the set. Here's another moment from the Brit set and from a similar moment in the days of big hair.

I never meant 2 cause u any sorrow
I never meant 2 cause u any pain
I only wanted 2 one time see u laughing
I only wanted 2 see u laughing in the purple rain

Purple rain purple rain
Purple rain purple rain
Purple rain purple rain
I only wanted 2 see u bathing in the purple rain

Want more?

Oh, yes, and pleasing that KT won something.

Tag: music, guitar, Prince