69 for 1 by Alan Coren Page A

further considered leaving the boot open, so targeting thieves could see I had not locked the stuff from the open glove box in the boot; leaving
the doors open so they could see I had not shoved the stuff from the open glove box under the seats; and leaving the bonnet open, so they could see I had not hidden the stuff from the open glove
box beneath the scuttle. You know jemmies.
    But what I most considered was not leaving the notice on my dashboard in the first place; for thieves, you may have heard, know a thing or two about dishonesty, and on being told ‘There
Are No Valuables Left In This Vehicle’, tend to respond ‘Pull this one, sunshine.’ Especially as the first sentence is unsettlingly ambiguous: notwithstanding its having been
toiled over by the top brains of Scotland Yard, it could equally mean: ‘There Were Once Valuables In This Vehicle But There Are None Left’, which strongly suggests that breaking into
this car is a doddle. Give us that coat-hanger, Wayne.
    I do wish the top brains had come to me. If they had said, ‘We have a bit of a problem, Al, more cars than ever are being turned over, but the police can do nothing, they have got their
hands full going round poking notices under windscreen wipers, got any ideas?’, I would have suggested that drivers be advised to leave a rucksack on the back seat with wires dangling from
it, preferably attached to a clock, and a luggage-label reading: ‘Osama bin Laden, 13a, Pondicherry Crescent, Ealing.’ Either that or gum a luminous sign to the rear window announcing:
‘Turkish poultry on board.’
    As to their keynote slogan, what possessed the Met to come up with: ‘Safe in the heart of London’? For that is exactly what I have, and I see no reason to advertise the fact to
villains who, having ransacked my car, seek to take the next step up the acquisition chain. And no, since you ask, I take no comfort from the probability that innovative Old Bill policy is, even as
I type, putting together a second elegant plastic notice reading: ‘There Are No Valuables Left In This Safe’, and advising me to keep its door open.
    Still, needs must when the devil drives, and if what he is driving is my car up to my door, its boot considerately left open by me to make it easier for him to heave my safe into it, then I
suppose the Met must do everything in its power to stop him, even if it means suspending all police leave in the never-ending battle to deploy plastic notices round the clock before rushing back to
the nick to spend the rest of the day squinting at CCTV footage in the desperate hope of clocking someone doing 41 mph on Hammersmith Flyover at 3 a.m.
    It is incumbent on each and every one of us to be proactive in this great new crime initiative. Why not make your own deterrent placards? Before going out for a walk, hang round your neck:
‘Do Not Mug This Man, He Is Carrying No Cash, Credit Cards, Cellphone, Or Keys’. Fearful of copping a house-trashing in your absence? Try: ‘Do not piss on this garden, we are
growing top-quality Colombian Gold, please call later.’ Missed the last bus? ‘Do Not Attempt To Rape This Woman, He Is A Cabinet Minister In Drag.’
    And mind how you go.

Time Check
    I N all the 31 years, 8 months, 22 days, 13 hours and 27 minutes that I had been writing regularly for
The Times
, I
had never been as gobsmacked by anything in it as I was at 8.12 a.m. on Monday, January 16, 2006, the minute up to which all those other minutes had led. In the interests of precision, I wish I
could tell you how many seconds there were on the end of the minutes, but I can’t. That is because, when the minutes began, back in 1974, I did not have an Artex clock. None of us had. We did
not know about the Artex clock until Monday morning, at 8.12, when we opened our copies of
The Times
.
    To page 8. Where, beneath two unforgivably sloppy recipes for, on the left, duck salad with tarragon from Thomasina Miers, and, on the right,