Bicycles stolen every 71 seconds

in message , Ziggy
') wrote:

On 27 Apr 2007 11:08:23 +0100 (BST), (Alan
Braggins) wrote:

In article , Paul
Boyd wrote:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/6596559.stm

"A bicycle is stolen every 71 seconds in England..."
I guess the owner is getting pretty fed up by now :-)

If we're going to be pedantic, if it was really the same bicycle the
rightful owner would have had it stolen only once, and all the others
wouldn't be that upset since they had just stolen it themselves.
And if we're not going to be pedantic, you know what they really meant.

I see the sense of humour bypass has taken nicely, Alan.

Of course, the original owner could *easily* have snatched it back from
the thief well within the alloted 71 seconds thus having it ready for
the next thief (or the same one having another go).

So the original owner has to snatch it back once every 71 seconds? What
happens if he needs to attend to a call of nature?

--
(Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; ... exposing the violence incoherent in the system...

On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 12:44:14 +0100, Simon Brooke
wrote:

in message , Ziggy
') wrote:

On 27 Apr 2007 11:08:23 +0100 (BST), (Alan
Braggins) wrote:

In article , Paul
Boyd wrote:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/6596559.stm

"A bicycle is stolen every 71 seconds in England..."
I guess the owner is getting pretty fed up by now :-)

If we're going to be pedantic, if it was really the same bicycle the
rightful owner would have had it stolen only once, and all the others
wouldn't be that upset since they had just stolen it themselves.
And if we're not going to be pedantic, you know what they really meant.

I see the sense of humour bypass has taken nicely, Alan.

Of course, the original owner could *easily* have snatched it back from
the thief well within the alloted 71 seconds thus having it ready for
the next thief (or the same one having another go).

So the original owner has to snatch it back once every 71 seconds? What
happens if he needs to attend to a call of nature?

He he, good point.

I presumed it was an average but if we're going to play at
hyper-pedantry, the thefts could be very precisely timed at one every 1
minute 11 seconds.

Of course, perhaps there are a chain of thieves and after a call of
nature (or a hour or so in the local curry house) our intrepid owner
would just go an snatch it back from the thief as far down the line as
it had got.


Or maybe it's different bikes :-)

Actually, in all seriousness, if that many bikes are being stolen I
would imagine there is a good chance the some bikes *are* being stolen
more than once in a year.

Simon Brooke wrote on 27/04/2007 12:44 +0100:

So the original owner has to snatch it back once every 71 seconds? What
happens if he needs to attend to a call of nature?


The thief gets ****ed off? ;-)

--
Tony

"The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there
is no good evidence either way."
- Bertrand Russell

In article , Paul Boyd wrote:

There was a smiley at the end. This indicates an attempt at humour.

Don't worry, keep practicing and maybe you'll manage the advanced skills
of conveying and spotting humour without having to artificially flag it.


I
didn't actually really believe that it was the same bike being stolen
every 71 seconds.

If I thought there was any doubt about that, I wouldn't have said
you knew what they really meant.

"Alan Braggins" wrote in message
...
In article , Paul
Boyd wrote:

There was a smiley at the end. This indicates an attempt at humour.

Don't worry, keep practicing and maybe you'll manage the advanced skills
of conveying and spotting humour without having to artificially flag it.


I
didn't actually really believe that it was the same bike being stolen
every 71 seconds.

If I thought there was any doubt about that, I wouldn't have said
you knew what they really meant.

"Alans" .. they're all the same ...

On 27 Apr 2007 04:17:20 -0700, John Kane wrote:

Kudos to the police. Finding and returning a bike in under 71 seconds
is remarkably fast work

I thought the pigs were the biggest stolen bike barrons going ....
http://www.bumblebeeauctions.co.uk

particularly as hardly any of the ones they flog off are road worthy

On 27 Apr 2007 13:49:34 +0100 (BST), (Alan
Braggins) wrote:

In article , Paul Boyd wrote:

There was a smiley at the end. This indicates an attempt at humour.

Don't worry, keep practicing and maybe you'll manage the advanced skills
of conveying and spotting humour without having to artificially flag it.

Although evidently not to Alan who took what was perfecly obviously a
light hearted quip and 'explained' why it was wrong with a piece of
pedantry that wasn't even certain to be true.

On 27/04/2007 14:22, elyob said,

"Alans" .. they're all the same ...

I reckon it's his time of the month or something!

--
Paul Boyd
http://www.paul-boyd.co.uk/

in message , Tony Raven
') wrote:

POHB wrote on 27/04/2007 11:29 +0100:
On 27 Apr, 08:52, Paul Boyd usenet.dont.work@plusnet wrote:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/6596559.stm
"A bicycle is stolen every 71 seconds in England..."

I wonder where they all go? Is there that much market in 2nd hand
bikes, do they all end up in a ditch when the thief can't flog it?

I read an interesting report on an investigation into stolen computers
about ten years ago. They traced the chain after they were stolen and
found the thief would pass it on for about £50 and it then went through
a whole load of hands, each adding a mark up, until they ended up in
dodgy shops where they were being sold for more than you could buy the
same item in PC World!

Yup. But it's highly unlikely this is happening with bikes. It's not
generally going to be possible to sell any second hand bike as new without
doing a lot of expensive work on it, and there are very few dealers
selling second hand bikes simple because second hand bikes typically fetch
such low prices.

--
(Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

'Victories are not solutions.'
;; John Hume, Northern Irish politician, on Radio Scotland 1/2/95
;; Nobel Peace Prize laureate 1998; few have deserved it so much

On 27 Apr, 11:54, Andy Leighton wrote:
On 27 Apr 2007 03:29:45 -0700, POHB wrote:

On 27 Apr, 08:52, Paul Boyd usenet.dont.work@plusnet wrote:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/6596559.stm
"A bicycle is stolen every 71 seconds in England..."

I wonder where they all go? Is there that much market in 2nd hand
bikes, do they all end up in a ditch when the thief can't flog it?

Indeed - it is over 440,000 bikes a year - just for England. Surely
they all can't be sold can they? Who is buying them?

In Glasgow, Paddy's Market is a well-known area to buy a "knocked-off"
bike.