The Native Returns

Spent the last dew days on Cape Cod with my wife, seeing her cousin, shopping, eating, sleeping, sightseeing, although since we've made this trip many times, and since the cousin hasn't moved, any sights we've taken in are the same sights we've always seen. Thus, no new pictures.

Always absorbing a bit of their local news on TV, mostly coming from Boston. News is news no matter where you go, but the words to describe it may vary. 

I got the biggest kick out of the traffic reporter who pointed to snake lines of cars on the screen and told whoever wasn't in a car that getting thought the tunnel (The Big Dig I'll assume.) will take about 38 minutes. Other major spots were about the same; 30+ minutes. Their George Washington Bridge and Lincoln Tunnel.

The female broadcasters are dressed to kill, wearing what look like cocktail dresses, usually with a slit somewhere. The best thing description I heard from the traffic reporter was when she pointed out a traffic accident that was causing "curiosity" delays. No rubber-necking in Boston.

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And who doesn't love a good heist story? Sunday morning's news brought us the delightful tale of the Louvre being looted in Paris on a sleepy Sunday morning at 9:30 a.m. Parisian time, a half hour after the museum opened. Crowds of visitors to protect, so no shooting taking place. Less traffic to get in the way of the getaway. And they did get away, on a pair of motor scooters.

The world was treated to the tale of deux hommes who used a monte-meubles truck to gain access to a second story window at the Louvre Museum, saw their way in, and smash and crag priceless royal jewels, setting off alarms, but not getting stopped by any gathering security guards. The perps then made their way back down the ladder truck, dropping booty along the way, and raced off on the back of  two accomplices on motor scooter to parts still unknown. Seven minutes. Ten minutes. Gone Fast.  

And what the hell is a monte-meubles truck? Well, it's a bit of a bucket truck, apparently used all over Paris to help hoist big furniture into apartments, probably because of winding staircases. and small elevators. How else is gigantic the Louis XIV armoire going to get in? Supposedly the trucks are seen all over Paris doing this. Youngsters in France rather than getting Hess trucks for Christmas are getting replica monte-meubles to play with, so what can you expect by wayward youths who grow up to think about?

No one was hurt during the caper. With all of us having watched heist movies since Topkapi, Riffi,  Entrapment, and the Oceans 11 franchise, we can see it now: the planning.

A group of four people, maybe all men, but I like to think there's a saucy female in leather somewhere,  driving the horny thieves crazy, in a dingy building outside Paris watching a Power Point presentation by the leader on how they are going to accomplish the heist. Or, maybe they are using a white board and colored Sharpies to diagram things out and post photos of the layout so all can become familiar. "Jacques, did you bring the croissants?" "Mais oui."

Law enforcement is abuzz. Professionals have done this. Well, yeah, who wants to think they were overtaken by amateurs? What will happen to the jewels? Removed from the settings and fenced? Or, is there an eccentric collector out there who just wants to sit on his yacht surrounded by French jewels while staring at the Vermeer's he's heisted from the Isabella Gardner Stewart museum in 1990?

Will they be caught and the loot returned? Use of the ladder truck puts a whole new slant on second-story robbery. It's obviously going to be a big clue. Where did it some from? Was it rented from somewhere? The thieves are not likely to go back to the rental place looking for their deposit back like the stupid 1993 Ryder truck renters who blew a huge hole in the New York's World Trade Center.

Museum heists stir the imagination. The Mona Lisa was taken in 1911. Murph the Surf, Jack Roland Murphy, led a crew through an unlocked New York City Museum of Natural History window in 1964 and made off with the Star of India Sapphire, a hunk of a gem, and other baubles. No alarms. Easy peasy. Murph though was apprehended shortly after and the gems returned. Big news back then.

Murph has passed away, but not people like him. Today's online NYT lists 6 heist movies to watch: The list is clearly made by someone who is not old enough to have seen Topkapi or Riffi. It does lead off, chronologically, with How to Steal a Million, a personal favorite of mine since I watched that movie in 1966 at Radio City Music Hall with my father while waiting for a late bus to take me to college in Potsdam, New York. But to list The Great Muppet caper, 1981? Are they kidding?

The Louvre fallout is mighty. Politicians are critical of so brazen a robbery in "broad daylight." Is there any other kind of daylight? Daylight is always "broad," a word the OED tells us can mean "wide open or fully expanded."

I think I read Ambrose Bierce list all the hackneyed newspaper phrases. "Shots ring out" is probably in there. Shots always "ring out." A favorite of mine.

Just this morning I complained via X to a NYT reporter who fell into the dogma of always saying certain high schools in new York City are "elite" high schools. Use of the word elite makes these schools, where admission is gained by a competitive exam, as always being "elite," as if they were Harrow and only the one percenters of New York managed to send their kids there. But I digress.

Leads? There are 60 investigators assigned to the case. One of the thieves was wearing a yellow workman's vest. Witnesses are being interviewed and security footage is being analyzed. I'm sure there is someone in front of a white board posting photos of things and exhorting the assembled to get busy. It's a real movie. We've seen this.

Worries? Time is running out. The items may be cannibalized for the jewels and gold. Gone forever. This morning's Wall Street Journal, on the first page, centers a large photo, above the fold, of the window the thieves entered: MUSEE DU LOUVRE GALERIES DES ANTIQUES. The place looks like a shabby apartment. Maybe a drug den. 

The continuing story of the heist is jumped to page A8.  The headline is damning: Heist Offers Window on France's Broken Finances. A sub-heading goes: Strained public finances hobble its ability to manage crowds, secure art. An outquote goes: Finding Public funds for any overhaul is going to be a challenge. Uh-Oh. For the want of a nail the kingdom is lost. It's like the very old joke about the Christine Keeler, Mandy Rice Davies British sex scandal many years ago: One screw and the Cabinet falls apart. One heist and we're doomed. The lede:

"The morning after thieves broke into the Louvre Museum in broad daylight, [see, it's always "broad"] making off with its crown jewels, an embarrassed nation is asking itself a question: How could France let this happen?"

How? First you get Power Point software, or a white board, assemble in a dingy house somewhere, rent  buy, or better yet steal, a monte-meubles (ladder truck), buy a saw and some masks, make use of motor scooters, and off you go, Bob's your uncle, the tiaras are yours. Lots of hand-wringing going on in the Macron government these days, and its not all about tariffs.

"The subject of museums and their vulnerability is old," said Culture Minister Rachida Dati. "For 40 years there was no interest in securing these great museums."

The New York Post can be counted on for a good headline: "Commando Raid. Evidence of Louvre 'expert' thieves."

The lede: French police revealed that they are hunting a "commando" of four robbers who pulled off the daring heist of priceless valuables—and now they've got some evidence."

Well yeah. What's a retired member of French Special Forces going to do? "On Monday, police recovered a motorcycle helmet belonging to one of the criminals, as well as a glove in the basket of the construction lift the robbers used to break in, investigators told Le Parisien." The robbers, on exiting tried to set the ladder's basket on fire, but failed. Something always doesn't go right.

And where did the ladder truck come from? Well it was stolen after the gang answered a classified ad on the French site Leboncoin. They assaulted the owner after turning up at his house in the small town called—of all things—Louvres, 15 miles northeast of Paris."

Clue, clue, clues. Street camera footage. Will they be caught?

Stay tuned. It's not over till it's over. Murph the Surf was caught quite quickly.

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