Why don’t my local police work nights?

Every few weeks, I leave my front door to find a car missing its side window and a pile of glass on the pavement. One morning there were four windowless cars, all in a row; someone had already been out with duct tape and some bin bags in an attempt to keep the rain from their back seats. The debris from these thefts is just another feature of our London street, like the confetti from Chelsea’s Registry Office which flutters all the way down the King’s Road. But last Wednesday, at 8.15 p.m. to be exact, I witnessed my first attempted smash and grab. 

The two cyclists hadn’t seen me, fag in hand, watching them from my balcony when they pulled up outside. They looked professional, dressed all in black and wearing motocross-style helmets with balaclavas underneath, kitted out in the closest you can get to SWAT gear for less than a hundred quid on Amazon.