Hello Bodmin!

Plough Lane bound… Hoping it’s going to be a good game today and ideally three points

Pompey v Oxford , a lower goes down game? For selfish reasons would sooner it was Pompey, but not really bothered.

You're easily pleased (and easily fooled) Bob! [Link]

Trigs-at home it’s hard to be so defensive as the crowd push you forward so leaving you exposed. Hard to see us scoring with a bunch of kids up front

Do they still smash up phone boxes? Not been in one recently for a slash

And if by a miracle of science, an extra booted foot is growing out of the No.5's lower hamstring

Going on numerical form we should see today’s game as winnable. Luton only won 1 of their last 6 away and we’ve won 4 our last 6 home games. But I just can’t see it based on what I’ve seen at Stockport and Lincoln. I believe we’ll give a good account of ourselves, but we’ll fail to score and inevitably concede so I’m going 0-2.

Not sure if this is AR but another article bout the precarious financial position of EFL clubs, particularly the Championship. [Link]

And when they're not nicking things they're smashing up the public toilets.

They have cctv of the lads in Watchet, as well as knowing who they are anyway but the police still won't do anything. They are well fed teenagers who live with their parents.

Agreed NickD - many different factors creating many different reasons why people shoplift. I read something recently about a recorded rise in “middle class shoplifting” where people who can afford to pay and have no criminal history are increasingly adding items to their self checkout basket without scanning/paying - with a variety of reasons for self-justification eg they feel like it’s fair enough given the prices of items and/or how loyal they’ve been to a supermarket.

Isn't it a microcosm of the problems facing the country? How to deal with shoplifting is the secondary problem, but the primary problem - why people are shoplifting in growing numbers - is multifaceted and can't really be solved, hence why you can elect Farage or Polanski but nothing will change as the societal issues are too deep-rooted. Anyway, Happy Easter everyone.

OI - exactly!!

The idea of shop staff bravely fighting with shoplifters is appealing but imagine your wife, husband or child was knifed by a shoplifter whilst they were defending goods of marginal value. "Something must be done" is enticing but rarely works. Certainly sacking after 17 years service seems extremely harsh but I don't know all the circumstances.

Alan - I agree completely with your point about people not knowing one another in neighbourhoods - we are much more urbanised shoppers than we once were, going to big anonymous centres and outlets now rather than the high street shops that we used to use. The current trend is this “here today, gone tomorrow” (hopefully) thing of TikTok (or something else on social media) meet-ups, the whole red vs blue school fights thing recently is another example…. It’s so boring, but it does need stopping somehow - it’s a pity the huge SM companies facilitate these things, but I suppose discussing that might lead us all into a political discussion that’s better avoided…

They have face recognition Nick, and with security guys positioned at each exit, I assume they are alerted when someone with previous enters. If thefts are recorded on CCTV, then I guess like Meadow says, the file is handed to the Police

I worked in retail for 7 years prior to my teaching career - we had regular shoplifters, often in groups, and we could do virtually nothing about it… There was no CCTV or security staff (I worked in the off licence and DIY trades), and we were told to observe and report after any such incident - quite rightly they valued the safety of their employees above the monetary worth of the stolen items. I know people from the same company I worked for who were confronted with a knife, and in one case a gun, so it’s not something new (I’m talking 40+ years ago) - the current situation is worse because of the increased regularity, and I have no clue what the solution is. I don’t think armed guards on shops is the answer, and I don’t think the police don’t care about it, I just think they’ve got too much other stuff going on - shoplifting is a mix of kids doing it for fun/dares, people doing it because they literally can’t afford the cost of living, and a certain amount of what might loosely be called “organised crime” involving stealing to order and reselling items. It’s bad, weapons are more frequently used now it seems, but let’s not forget the days of bank robberies with sawn off shotguns, ram raiding of jewellery shops, and so on - it has always gone on, there’s perhaps a bit more attention on it now than before, maybe because of the current scale of it.

I'd say the population explosion has much to do with shop lifting as anything. Back in the day, many people knew who each other was, no so these days. I still remember the "shame" I brought to the door, as a copper returned me home having stolen a pint of milk off a doorstep on the way to school.

Just taking cctv pictures and not doing anything to stop people actually taking stuff doesn’t seem very effective though, especially as even if people are caught the penalties are pretty minimal or not enforced at all.

before supermarkets became the norm, I would imagine shoplifting was not as prevalent, since staff had to serve you from behind a counter. Growing up in the 1960s, we did not have self service ..... we were served by staff. Times change. I suspect Argos has zero percent shoplifting, but suffer from online fraud.

I think all the larger outlets manage shoplifting by CCTV these days. I know that the Waitrose I go to does and I can see the system monitoring my face when I enter. They don't want to put staff & customers in harm's way

If shops give up on tackling shoplifting, like Waitrose seem to have done in that case, then the end game is going to be that the whole retail model breaks down and shops shut up altogether, with everyone relying on delivery- not something that is a very appealing prospect at all but unless retailers and police change their approach that is where we are going to end up

I feel for the Waitrose guy but the rules are clear, don't tackle a shoplifter as you put yourself and others in danger. All the big supermarkets are insured against shoplifting. Switch on your camera and hope that the police catch up with them. We've had a number of successful convictions although they don't serve all their sentence and are back in a few months.

We've even got overt shoplifting in Watchet now. Obviously in a place like this everyone knows who the kids are doing it but the police claim not to be able to do anything.