A 'Pilfering' Scene

“The director of the National Economic Crime Centre, said while the maximum sentence for fraud is currently 10 years, the average sentence is around two years and even in the most serious cases is still only four years. "We support longer sentences for the frauds that are causing the highest harm," he told the BBC.

"In particular we're keen that the emotional impact of fraud is taken into consideration."

Galileo

In the year to March 2023 the Home Office recorded 1.25 million cases of fraud. Of those cases around 4% were investigated with just over 4,000 ending up in court.”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67149919

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i86Hc6AAVt4

“Minutes after being selected, Follows told the local party that he would “work to ensure that the Portillo moment in the public mindset will become the Hunt moment.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/oct/21/jeremy-hunt-set-to-quit-as-mp-in-fear-of-a-portillo-moment

“One person who might consider himself lucky to avoid spending time in the nick is the former Formula 1 boss, Bernie Ecclestone, who last week pleaded guilty to a £400m tax fraud. In return, he was given a 17 month suspended sentence. I may be missing something, but this sounds quite the deal. One that could almost tempt the law-abiding into a life of white collar crime. For it suggests, on a pro rata basis, that for every £785,000 of any fraud you can only expect a one-day suspended sentence. Which doesn’t sound like a great deterrent. Hell, I’d almost be tempted to go big and double up for a £1.5m fraud and risk a two-day sentence. It would sort my pension worries out at a stroke. So if any readers have any too-good-to-be-true Ponzi schemes they need help running, give me a shout. I’m all ears.”

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/oct/20/digested-week-space-for-one-more-in-tories-brave-new-world-after-a-fuss

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR8gsz60Np8

“There is a narrative building around the party of government, that all shocks are essentially external, and we should all pull together to deal with them as best we can, and Leadsom reflected that. It’s understandable; when the consequences of 13 years of increasingly chaotic decisions are all landing at once, plausible defence lines are few. Tactically, they need to keep the conversation as broad as possible, at the level of “isn’t the world terrible?” But this is the party of law and order – and it can’t divert our attention for ever from examining its actual record in the crucial area of law and order.

It is some record, and not in a good way: no grip, no plan, no direction. Functionally speaking, they’re basically anarchists.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gtPieijRa8

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/19/law-and-order-tory-criminal-ministers-crime-marks-and-spencer

From Monday there will be a lot more stories about fraud - and how to protect yourself - right across BBC as part of our Be Scam Safe week. You can find out more at bbc.co.uk/bescamsafe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ9rUzIMcZQ

“It began the way many discoveries do — a tickling of curiosity in the back of someone’s mind.”

9 Comments

Disc Qualified

""We need young, fit, healthy, keen people to come along and help fire the guns here." It is hard work and it is dirty work, but it is fun, and we like making big bangs on the whole." New volunteers would be trained over the winter in time to fire the guns in 2024, he said.

The scheme is supported the Royal Armouries at Fort Nelson, with selected guns used from the museum's collection."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-67188525

"In the '70s and '80s the area's Casablanca club became one of the few places where you could dance to reggae and people flocked to Cardiff's and Newport's carnivals."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBp4dgE7Bho

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/oct/23/judges-to-rule-on-whethe...

"“Chipperfield said in a statement. "The willful act of twisting the three main exhibition halls breaks the conventional geometry and creates powerful interstitial public spaces. A wide esplanade opens onto the waterside promenade, offering an outdoor space for use by everyone."”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6uYVGIKZak

"However, Tartèse noted the study assumes that the findings from the Apollo samples applies to the whole moon, which may not be the case. “This underlines the importance of returning further samples from different regions of the moon through future missions,” he said."

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/oct/23/moon-may-be-40m-years-ol...

"The Shanghai branch is the museum's third outpost outside of Paris...and another one in the Spanish city of Malaga."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OGd4gplxQM

Yesterday, Once More

"We think it's another era, but there are so many parallels with the world we live in today. If any of those people were running around with iPhones, it would have been over for him. Completely over."

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/oct/20/europe-will-n...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frdj1zb9sMY

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-23/rock-hudson-gay-aids-documentary-...

Much Ado About Nothing?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-67193578

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKdxd718WXg

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/oct/23/blown-battered-bott...

"His collection started with donations of bric-a-brac from local people: the cheese grater that someone’s uncle attached to his boots as crampons during the bora season; a newspaper used to windproof a jacket; the iron that a mother put in her daughter’s coat so she wouldn’t be blown away.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/oct/24/microsoft-to-inve...

'Some Reserves'

"Under India's wildlife protection law, the offence of displaying animal parts can attract three to seven years in jail.

Tigers are an endangered species and the global wild tiger population dropped by around 95% over the past century, according to World Wide Fund statistics."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvEdtn179Ro

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/oct/24/ai-risk-climate-crisi...

"The NAO said although it is a transport project "the intended benefits are much wider than improving travel connections and journey times" and that "one of the most significant intended benefits" was to "enable the creation of new housing"."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8ouigVtUvo

"... he was useful to Prince Charles due to his wealth, which he described as his “superpower”. He also described the future king as “undervalued political stock”"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-67166799

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhyaAPsT1LU

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2023/oct/22/a-yellowstone-for-europe-...

The Big Bamboo

""As well as the aesthetic change, I worry that replacing a traditional dry stone wall with a wooden fence is just false economy.""

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1u0hzLuDCw

""Dry stone walls are an intrinsic feature of the Cotswold landscape - an ancient craft that has been passed down through generations - and rural residents are rightly proud of the artisanship and heritage that goes into creating them.""

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/oct/26/cold-war-satellite-image...

"The new discoveries instead point to the frontier being more fluid and a vibrant place of cross-border trade, rather than of constant violent conflict, the authors said, with the forts supporting a system of caravan-based interregional trade, communication and military transport.  The authors said it now raises the question: “Was it a wall or a road?”"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0p_1QSUsbsM

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67207375

"That's to say, the crew would spend a number of days circling the Earth in just their capsule, conducting scientific experiments and performing outreach, before then returning to a splashdown on Earth."

https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/26/bt_begins_big_switchover_ahead/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EclF6t38z7o

https://www.hexham-courant.co.uk/news/23883078.offensive-halloween-costu...

Hmmm ...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-67237956

Velcro.

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2024/apr/11/george-osborne-clashes-w...

'Speak Species'

“Once you start looking up on high streets and hunting for ghost signs, you’ll find that they’re hidden in plain sight, tucked away down alleyways or hiding among rooftops."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67230751

""Director of policy at The Wildlife Trusts told the BBC: "Reintroducing wildlife must be part of the UK government's arsenal for tackling nature loss and climate change - it is astonishing there is no strategy for doing so.""

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4Mc-NYPHaQ

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/oct/27/historic-england-ghost-s...

'Closet Clinic'

"A rubber stamp for decisions that had already been made inside No 10. Everyone can agree that there should be rules because nobody wants awesome computational capability to fall into the wrong hands. But nobody can settle on what the jurisdiction should be, nor agree on how tightly even safe hands should be bound."

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/oct/31/eight-shocking-revelatio...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1gpgU_xkUk

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/nov/01/very-much-like-us-festiv...

"The judge stopped the hearing and gave a rare warning that he may have to decide the case alone under seldom-used powers originally drawn up to prevent gangsters influencing juries."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfmrHTdXgK4

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67172229

Busy.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/nov/01/blobs-near-earths-core-a...

'In-flight Servicing'

"If the endeavour is successful, the company behind the new capsule may be asked to upgrade it so it can also carry Esa astronauts into orbit, again on the basis of a commercially contracted service."We will conceive [the capsule] in a way that it's not a dead end, meaning that it's open and can evolve in the future to a crew vehicle, if member states decide to do so," said Esa director-general Josef Aschbacher."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-67337137

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm6AOHq9OL4

"Eventually, it could also evolve [to go to] other destinations, possibly to the Moon," he told reporters."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e4Odk-v3oU

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-67339057

The Un-Amused

"Because of the different gravitational field strength on the Moon, time moves quicker there relative to Earth - 58.7 microseconds every day. This might not seem like much, but it can have a significant impact when trying to synchronise spacecraft."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68722032

"Emperor Tewodros II had his prized coat and scarf ripped from his body during a British invasion of Ethiopia in 1868.  Andrew Heavens is urging people to check their attics as he believes parts of the items may be lost in the city."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/03/we-have-seen-failu...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FOg2nYHXb8&ab_channel=INFINITOR

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3gk210j814o

""It makes sense that when you go to another body, like the Moon or Mars, that each one gets its own heartbeat," he said."

https://www.theguardian.com/science/article/2024/jun/30/scientists-find-...