Wine, Cheese, Coffee and ... Thievery

The Telegraph reports: UK recession: There's a new thief about...

Lock up your shaved white truffles! Throw a cordon sanitaire round the cashmere cardies! Don't take your eyes off those lovely Cath Kidston placema... – oops, too late, they've been half-inched by that respectable-looking woman in the Boden skirt with the Orla Kiely handbag. Forget reports about the rise of living on the never never and the re-emergence of a buy-now, pay-later mentality – huge numbers of us don't want to pay at all. Middle-class shoplifting is the new crime.

As the recession brings the City to its knees and cuts a swathe through the shires, an unlikely new criminal class is emerging. Former pillars of the community are pilfering balsamic vinegar from supermarkets.

The manager of a Somerfield supermarket in West Yorkshire, Richard Lay, recently declared that he was shocked by the new breed of shoplifters. "In one day our store detective caught two of them. One was a middle-aged supply teacher in a suit, stealing £3.30 worth of cheese and celery for his lunch. The other was a 63-year-old office worker in really smart clothes, who paid for some products but added things like a pack of ham and cat food to her basket. I've been in this business for 15 years and have never seen shoplifters like this. They say they are stealing to 'top up' their shopping because times are tough."

Tesco electronically tags pecorino in some stores.

The chains tend to security-tag items on a store by store basis, providing a fascinating snapshot of local mores. In Borders Books in Islington, The Opera Collection boxed CD sets are tagged; copies of Jade: Fighting to The End are not. Across the road in Waitrose, there are security caps on the bottles of Mersault but not the Chablis Premier Cru. The Pimms is capped, as is the Limoncello and Veuve Clicquot. The more downmarket Margarita Mix is uncapped; more puzzlingly, so is the Moët.

Pecorino is tagged but not the champagne.

Jamie Oliver, take a bow. You definitely popularized the right shit but to the wrong people, boy!

LOL.

BWAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHHHHHHH!!!