But inevitably the couple will come to argue themselves over who owns their Scrabble booty and probably have a fight which turns out to be fatal to them both. No-one will have won. It's just what happens when the stakes are so high.
What I love about the British is that we like to give criminals a sporting chance. This struck me as I put my laptop and wallet and phone in a locker at the gym which I then secured with a combination lock with three numbers on it. Any thief passing by has a one in 999 chance of just guessing my number and then being able to help themselves to my valuables and (if they so wish) my clothes. And that's only if they have one go at guessing. Whilst I was swimming someone could probably manage to surreptitiously scroll through a hundred or so numbers whilst no-one was looking, given them an improved 1 in 10 shot at the jackpot. I know a little something about the odds of finding a specific number out of 999 numbers and though occasionally it might take you days (unlikely if all the numbers are readily available at the flick of a dial), it can quite often take mere seconds. Sometimes you can see 30 numbers in a day. Think of all the stuff you could nick from 30 lockers. You would very soon be a millionaire who was wearing several layers of different sized clothes at a time.
Of course some people aren't prepared to take that chance and so instead opt for a lock with four numbers on it, so the odds spiral to a much safer 1 in 9999. Well they would if people weren't as stupid as I reckon they are. Because my guess is that 90% of lockers with four numbers will be opened by one of very few combinations, because people are too lazy to try and remember four random digits. The popular 66 triumverate of 1066 (the Hastings), 1666 (The Great Fire) and 1966 (The World Cup) will account for most of them. A good percentage of other people will have chosen the year of their birth, which in most gyms would mean you're looking at a range from 1960 to 1986. Maybe a few would try the year of their wedding or birth of their child, so maybe scroll on a bit through to 2004 which might take another twenty seconds. If all else fails have a crack at 1234.
And this is the great security that we trust to protect our valuables and clean underwear.
Failing that some bolt clippers and a jemmy would do the trick, though might look a bit more suspicious.
There will be more tips on how to make a living as a criminal in the coming weeks.
I protect myself from the thieves after I have secured my lock by setting it to the number 007 (which isn't the combination - though I suspect quite a few three-number lock owners plump for it). Not only am I demonstrating that I am not so unimaginative as to choose that number as my combo, I think any thief might look at the lock, see the number and conclude that this locker must belong to James Bond himself. So yes, it might be crammed full of exicting gadgets, but it is also probably protected by some gadget made by John Cleese which will blow up in their face if they manage to crack the code. Although maybe Q or M or whoever he is would be better trying to think of a way of locking a locker that didn't involve a combination. I don't know, maybe someone could come up with something involving a lock and key arrangement. I don't know. I'm not an inventor.
