Nasty

A few weeks ago I wrote here about the spate of car thefts that involve taking the keys, a consequence of improvements in car security. I heard from an old friend today who told me that his son's Subaru was taken the other night by burglars who came in looking for the keys. It's only a car, and there was insurance, and nobody saw the thieves, so things could have been worse. My friend told me that one of his son's friends, also a Subaru owner, had always taken his keys upstairs, and when a man broke in a few months ago he badly beat the car owner to get the keys from him.

Talking of car thefts, another thing we see a bit of these days is old unroadworthy cars being stolen from people's front gardens, and crushed within the hour. That's because the world price of scrap has gone through the roof, and an old banger can be worth up to £100 - a few years ago it would cost you that to get it taken away.
That's globalisation for you. Booming economies in the Far East lead to a boom in thefts in West London.