As the name of today’s Dollop suggests, I have an update regarding our van break-in, as talked about in Dollop 190. The Young’uns van was broken into, and the burglar chose to ignore the instruments, the Satnav, and the £50 note, and instead took a gamble on the mystery box, which unfortunately for him/her, was full of Young’uns CDs.
I suggested in Dollop 190 that perhaps I could launch another investigative journalism project, after my previous efforts with the mysterious Reel-To-Reel Recording (see Dollop 182) in which I attempt to deduce who the burglar might be and then track them down. I called up Steven Mainprize last week to thank him for all his help playing detective with the reel-to-reel recording, and while he was happy that the project had come to a successful conclusion, he admitted to being a bit sad that we’d solved the mystery so soon, as he was really enjoying the adventure. I’m sure that Mr Mainprize would be only too happy to take on detective duties again, this time utilising his skills to track down the burglar and the stolen box. However, the mystery has kind of already been solved, or at least half solved anyway.
Thank you to Dollop regular (we’re over halfway through this project, and I still haven’t got a collective name for you Dollop listeners/readers) Michael Wackington, who I have appointed head of the David’s Daily Digital Dollop Detective Agency’s Cyber department. He has been checking Ebay, in case the burglar decided to sell all the stolen CDs online.
“No suspicious activity,” he reports. “However, I was amazed at the range of prices that the CDs were on sale for. For instance the Never Forget CD – is on sale from a low of £8.86 to a high of £13.45, a massive range of £4.59. over 50%!! wow. And there was I thinking that ebay would exhibit the characteristics of a free market and prices would coalesce around the most competitive price. If the woman ( or man) who stole your CDs does start off loading them, I expect the price to plummet. I shall track the prices in the next few days and report any unusual trading patterns.”
Thank you Michael, excellent work, and I shall keep you on a retainer in case the daily Dollop Detective Agency needs your services in the future; however, on this occasion, the mystery is solved, or at least half solved. But I’ll come to that soon. I’m building suspense, because that’s the kind of skilled writer that you’re dealing with here. You’re hooked, aren’t you? Unless you read The Young’uns Facebook status, in which case you’ll already know the outcome, and you’ll be wishing I’d therefore move on to writing about something more interesting, like revisiting yesterday’s subject of having sex with my dead mother. “I thought he’d reached his Dolloping zenith with his kettle material, but then he managed to take it to a whole new level of genius with the incest stuff.”
I find it odd that our albums are on sale on Ebay for £13,45, baring in mind that you can buy it from us for £10 and actually give some money to the people who made the album. Who would choose to buy an album for more money and deliberately rip off the artist in the process? Perhaps this Ebay seller is catering for a very special niche market, comprising people who like an artist’s music, but don’t like the artist’s on a personal level and therefore don’t want to support the artist financially, and are happy to pay a premium in order to get their music without giving the people who made the music any money. I can see how this might work for someone who wanted to buy a Gary Glitter album, perhaps really wanting to listen to his music, but not really wanting to give money to a paedophile. But I’m not sure why this would apply to our band. I am tempted to contact the Ebay seller and try and get their logic for selling an album for a higher price than the artist is selling it for.
We got a message on Facebook last night, detailing the whereabouts of our stolen box. The message was from James, at the music shop Elegance Music in Sheffield, who found the box dumped outside his shop. The burglar had seemingly got a little way down the street, opened the box, saw the disappointing contents, and dumped it in the street. I assume it was a coincidence that they left it outside a music shop, unless the burglar happens to be a fan of The Young’uns and upon discovering that he’d broken into our van and stolen our box, felt guilty and decided to try and make amends by leaving the box outside somewhere where a music fan might discover it and get in contact with us.
Unless of course the burglar was James from Elegance Music, who pretended that he’d found the Cds, knowing that it was likely to give him some free positive publicity for his shop, assuming that we would mention it on Facebook. Also we gave him a couple of free CDs and a bottle of wine to say thanks. Maybe he was counting on this too. Come to think of it, the music shop is next-door to Sean’s local garage, which is where he got the van window fixed. Maybe James and the owner of the garage are in on this together. James’s shop would get free publicity, and the garage would get paid for fixing the window. My goodness, I think we might be onto something here. Get me Mr Wackington and Mr Mainprize, there’s detective work to be done!
Maybe James’s initial plan was to also steal the instruments, knowing that he could make even more money from us because we’d need to buy new instruments to replace the stolen ones. Maybe he intended to steal the instruments as well as the CD box, and then get in contact with us to say that he’d found our box; obviously this would ingratiate him to us. We’d then enquire as to whether the instruments had also been dumped outside his shop, but he’d of course answer with a no. We’d obviously need to buy new instruments, and James would kindly offer to supply us with the replacement instruments at a discount price, by way of a commiserative gesture. We would feel so grateful for his help with the CD box and his kindness regarding the discount, that we would naturally buy the new musical instruments from his shop. He’d ask us exactly what instruments had been stolen, and when we told him, he’d say, “well, it just so happens we have those exact same instruments stocked in our shop.” He would then sell our own instruments back to us, and we’d be so grateful for his generosity that we’d give him even more free publicity.
Maybe this was the original plan, but then he got a bit worried and so decided just to steal the CDs and thus bag the free wine, free CDs and free publicity, which, let’s face it, is still a pretty good deal, an a lot less risky for James. My goodness, I think I’ve cracked it. In all likelihood, James is reading this Dollop, presumably because he knows that I’m going to be giving him free publicity. But now he’ll be quaking in his boots, boots which he’s probably stolen from some van somewhere in another of his dastardly criminal escapades. I’m on to you James. I expect Steven Mainprize and Michael Wackington will be paying you a visit before too long in order to do some sniffing around, so be careful what you say James, because we’re on to you!
Obviously I suppose there’s a chance that James is just a nice guy who did genuinely just find the CDs outside his shop, in which case thanks James.
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