It's audacious crime week!

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Clearly a natural extension of Black Friday - well you have to pay for it somehow, don't you, before the blokes from Wonga.com come round and break your kids' legs.

In Milton Keynes, they're ram-raiding the Red Bull F1 team's HQ to nick all the replica trophies.

While in Bolton, they're blowing up cash machines at Asda

[Guy Profumo]

It's audacious crime week!

I thought this was going to be about worthless stinking sub-human shitty cunt Gary Barlow announcing a tour to get you to pay the money he's cheated the Exchequer out of.

The shitty, shitty, stinking, shitty,shitty, shitty, Tory Fucking CUNT!!

[Alderman Barnes]

It's audacious crime week!

Are Red Bull's UK headquarters in Milton Keynes? That has a pleasing symmetry for observers of sporting franchise monstrosities.

[ursus arctos]

It's audacious crime week!

Just the F1 team, unfortunately.

Their corporate UK offices are in London.

[Flynnie]

It's audacious crime week!

Most F1 teams are based in and around Milton Keynes, since that's basically where Silverstone is.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

It's audacious crime week!

Guy Potger wrote:

I thought this was going to be about worthless stinking sub-human shitty cunt Gary Barlow announcing a tour to get you to pay the money he's cheated the Exchequer out of.

The shitty, shitty, stinking, shitty,shitty, shitty, Tory Fucking CUNT!!

Well somebody spent the afternoon helping put the rum in the Christmas pudding mixture ...

[blameless]

It's audacious crime week!

Hey, if the description fits, why not use it?

I find it very amusing that despite all the sucking up he's done to the establishment (organising Olympic concerts, the royal variety performance and assorted others), Barlow still doesn't have the CBE/knighthood he desperately craves, and won't be getting one anytime soon after his "it wasn't me guv, it was my evil accountant what done it" tax dodge was brought to light.

As for the crimes, I can understand blowing open a cash machine (even if some of the notes will get a bit singed), but where's the money to be made in fencing replicas of F1 trophies? There won't even be much real silver in them to melt down.

[ursus arctos]

Verdict in a trial that has been captivating a certain portion of France expected this week.

The son-in-law of a Monaco heiress was due to go on trial on Monday accused of plotting her murder to get his hands on her €12bn fortune in a case described as being straight out of a crime thriller.

The accused was reportedly on an "allowance" of EUR 500K a month via his wife (the daughter of a woman thought to own one in every four apartments in Monte Carlo), but had difficulty making ends meet. Using his long time personal trainer, the fraudster (fake degree from Cambridge, unrecognised appointment as Poland's Consul in Monaco, etc) hired two Marseillais drug dealers who had never done this kind of work before.

For those who read French, Monde has helpfully collected all of its reports from the trial in one place.

[Pérou Flaquettes]

The police investigators knew straight away Wojciech Janowski [the alleged contract killing puppet master] was dodgy: he was awarded the Légion d’honneur by Sarkozy. Dead giveaway if ever there was one.

An insane story in an insane place. €3,000/a month minimum for a studio flat, your average flat costs €50,000 a sq. metre, double that for premium gaffs like this €300 million penthouse.

Autant dire de l'or en barres dans cette cité-Etat où le prix du mètre carré tutoie, à l'achat, les 50 000 euros, et où le moindre studio se loue 3 000 euros par mois.

They can’t build enough flats and properties on that coast to meet the demand it’s barking mad (especially in Monaco obvs – no income tax and property/capital gains tax, except for the French). No wonder there are so many floods and wildfires down there, another two people died this week in Sainte-Maxime.

Michel Pastor, her brother who died in Feb. 2014 (3 months before his sister was murdered by those 2 Pieds Nickelés in Nice then), was the chairman of AS Monaco between 2004 and 2008 and a big shot at the LFP (the bosses of French football) for a few years too. He was a well-known art collector and a real Monaco fan, he ran the Monaco’s supporters association in the 1960s (his father’s building company built the Stade Louis II, the old man was a successful property developer, Michel took over the business, in cahoots with the local mafia, the Grimaldis – the royal family, who must have taken a hell of a cut on the sales, they have total control on who builds what there).

Hélène Pastor was famously tight, she was told to hire bodyguards but refused, too expensive. She would go ballistic apparently at the end of tenancy agreements during the final inspection if something was broken or damaged, even something as trifling as a toilet seat. Understandable I suppose if you’re a small landlord/lady but it’s safe to say that it wasn’t her case (the Pastor family eventually owned some 3,000 apartments, representing 15% of Monaco's total housing stock and worth about Euro 20 billion), she would even send les huissiers to formally register the damage in order to keep the deposit money or/and presumably threaten to sue.

Elle veillait au moindre détail, souligne Vanity Fair, "exigeant la vérification des bondes de lavabo ou des lunettes de toilette à la fin du bail, envoyant les huissiers si nécessaire".

Une vraie bande de fadas as they say down there.

[ursus arctos]

It is very much one of those stories with no likeable characters (with the possible exception of the “major domo” who was serving as a chauffeur when the hit went down and was whacked along with his boss, his life cannot have been easy).

We’ve discussed this before, but all of the tax relief in the world* couldn’t get me to live in Monaco. It is an awful place full of abominable people, and a police state to boot.

* worth noting that US citizens resident there remain subject to US tax.

[Pérou Flaquettes]

We’ve discussed this before, but all of the tax relief in the world* couldn’t get me to live in Monaco. It is an awful place full of abominable people, and a police state to boot.

I would extend that to most of the French south-east coast, and not just because it’s horribly built up. Still, the towns and cities are passably pleasant to occasionally visit, preferably out of season, some lovely museums too.

[ursus arctos]

I'm partial to Menton for sentimental reasons, but you aren't wrong.

[Sits]

premium gaffs like this €300 million penthouse.

Bit cramped on that sundeck for my liking.

[Sits]

I would extend that to most of the French south-east coast, and not just because it’s horribly built up. Still, the towns and cities are passably pleasant to occasionally visit, preferably out of season, some lovely museums too.

The villages and foothills are nice i.e. away from the coast.

[Stumpy Pepys]

While in Bolton, they're blowing up cash machines at Asda

Ah, that was my local Asda back in the day. Gives me a twinge of nostalgia …

[Pérou Flaquettes]

It is very much one of those stories with no likeable characters (with the possible exception of the “major domo” who was serving as a chauffeur when the hit went down and was whacked along with his boss, his life cannot have been easy).

We’ve discussed this before, but all of the tax relief in the world* couldn’t get me to live in Monaco. It is an awful place full of abominable people, and a police state to boot.

* worth noting that US citizens resident there remain subject to US tax.

Hélène Pastor murder: Polish son-in-law sentenced to life

Talking of which, the IRS ("worth noting that US citizens resident there remain subject to US tax."), I’ve just discovered this after hearing a French MP talk about it last night:

https://www.lesechos.fr/idees-debats...is-2150401.php

Leur seul tort est d'être né aux Etats-Unis. Ils n'y sont restés que quelques jours, quelques mois. Au gré des pérégrinations de leurs parents. Depuis, ils sont revenus vivre dans leurs pays d'origine. En Europe, ils sont français, allemands, britanniques, italiens, espagnols... Ils sont plus de 10.000. Leur nationalité américaine ? Ils l'ont oubliée ou s'en souviennent vaguement comme un souvenir de jeunesse. Jusqu'à ce que leur passé resurgisse.

Are you aware of it at all?