Just when you think a country has fallen into the hands of charlatans and clowns, along comes a group of men to show that its ancient genius is not yet extinct. I speak of the adjoining isle, where the Millennium Star gang has shown that the people who produced greats like Thora Hurd and Christine Keeler, Arthur Askey and Hughie Green, Bruce Forsyth and Lambert Simnel, are still capable of turning out great masterminds, writes Kevin Myers.
All my affection for law and order flees as swiftly as a minnow from a pike when I contemplate the brilliance that went into the making of the Millennium Star heist. This was the very scheme which the trial judge declared to be "wicked", adding that it was "merciful" that the police were aware of the impending raid.
Ah! Well, that's it! That's yet one more judge not getting an invitation to my place. In a country where robbers routinely use guns to steal cars from mothers taking their children to school, where woman cannot walk down streets at nightfall, to call these plucky crusaders' scheme "wicked" suggests an imperfect understanding of the English language, me lud. Me lud? Me bottom.
Tawdry tricks
Perhaps you, dear reader, have not read about my heroes? Allow me to enlighten you, as I wipe tears from my cheeks and wonder: will deare olde Englande ever see their like again? The 777-carat Millennium Star, the largest and most perfect gem in the world, was the centrepiece of that box of otherwise tawdry tricks in London, the Millennium Dome. For once, the word priceless does apply - though a theoretical price of £200 million sterling exists, whatever that may mean.
The diamond was in one display case in the heart of the dome; in a neighbouring case stood an enticing selection of blue diamonds. Their owners, De Beers, thought the cases were secure because it would take thieves at least half-an-hour to smash their way into them. Moreover, the Dome is on a peninsula in the Thames. It was one thing to get into it; quite another, after half-an-hour battering at cases surrounded by alarms, to escape from it.
The thieves - let me intone my heroes' names: Betson, Cockram, Adams, Ciarocchi, Meredith; all changed, changed utterly, a terrible beauty is born - devised a sublime plan. They would break into the perimeter gate around the Dome using a JCB and charge towards the cabinets in the centre of the dome, followed by a van carrying the rest of the gang.
They were to use a Hilti nail-gun - oh celestial device - to penetrate the cabinets. A sledgehammer would then be used to smash a way towards the Diamond and then its humbler blue cousins. And for the escape route, the gang opted for the Black Magic method. They would, under cover of smoke bombs, depart via a motorboat moored beside the Dome - dressed in black polo-necks, no doubt - for the north bank of the Thames and freedom. Pure genius.
Resourceful
Not merely were they well organised, they were resourceful too. Half-way through their raid, a motorcyclist unconnected with them collided with a bus. Anxious to avoid the police being called in, the gang helped spirit the motorcyclist away.
Once into the diamond area, the gang attacked the display cabinets, the ones De Beers thought would hold out for half-an-hour. In fact they held out for 27 seconds. How my heroes' noble hearts must have been bursting at this point! But they were already rumbled. Throughout the robbery, there were some 200 plainclothes rozzers on station around them. (Safety in numbers, eh, chaps?) My heroes were seized at the moment of their triumph, but without a struggle, and not a shot fired; for, of course, being English gentlemen reivers of the kind many thought extinct, they were unarmed.
Naturally, Scotland Yard has since leaked a story claiming that it was the astonishing analytical powers of the Flying Squad which had worked out what the criminals were planning. That's right, and I'm the natural son of Liz Taylor and the first Aborigine to make it to the Vatican, Pope Billabong I.
In other words, as we underworld types say, the Millennium Five were grassed up - i.e., informed on. Worse, though they were unarmed and have no established record of violence, this week they were imprisoned for up to 18 years, merely for trying to steal a lump of molecularly retextured charcoal. We need not wonder what rapists and murderers routinely get.
Eastern fleet
Some of the Millennium Five must have Irish connections. It is time for the Department of Foreign Affairs to act. We must return all letters from nice Sir Ivor Roberts, though if they wish, he and Elizabeth may seek political asylum in the Sovereign Principality of Ballymore Eustace. I am in need of some domestics.
We should deploy our eastern fleet, bombard Bristol, and seize the Cinque ports, with maybe a diversionary assault on Humberside to encourage Jacobite elements which have been chafing for centuries for the call to rise. Kent should be invested, and the Archbishop of Canterbury - that secessionist infidel! - be led in irons to a heretic's bonfire, presided over by my dad, Pope Billabong.
This as a prelude to a general insurrection, and the overthrow of the House of Windsor. Pope Billabong for King! Liz Taylor for Queen! Me for the Prince of Wales! Ivor Roberts for me butler! Come lads, and rally to the cause of the Millennium Five. And oh who would not this dawn be English, to claim such men as brothers?