The Clowns

A team of daring robbers perform a media-recorded heist of diamonds revealing a special if strange human fascination with the wonders of modern traffic!

Here's a media parable inspired by the fun film A Fish Called Wanda.

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Isaac Satan was an ex-CIA/P-IRA (Provisional Irish Republican Army) intelligence operative retired and living in London (UK) but feeling bored. He was also lonely.

Isaac met a gorgeous blonde office girl named Tandy who was an Irish-American emigrant to England and working at a law firm near London Bank. Isaac started dating her but also cooking up a scheme to spice up his life. He wanted to involve Tandy on his daring adventure.

Isaac's best friend Chris was dating the iconic actress Isobel Lucas. Isaac told Chris his scheme was to rob London Bank with Tandy involved and masked. Chris decided to propose they include Isobel in the robbery. Everyone would be masked of course. This was high-spirited adventure in modern-day London.

Isaac decided to mail dozens of Aer Lingus toy airplane/airport model-toy sets to the personnel working at London Bank. The recipients were bewildered at the symbolism of this mailing and wondered why the anonymous sender wanted them to randomly celebrate Aer Lingus (Ireland's national airline!) commercialism.

Isaac then called his pals who were ex-IRA in Northern Ireland. They were to provide some entertaining background distraction for Isaac's daring and spicy robbery of London Bank. Isaac called his ex-IRA allies for the robbery the Green Gang (GG). These fellows were now retired and nonviolent and were willing to help Isaac spice up his life and honestly determine the logic of this bizarre and random adventure Isaac had devised. They were in.

The London Bank opened as usual on a Friday morning in October 2021. Isaac, Tandy, Chris, and Isobel showed up in a white van parked by the rear entrance of the bank. They'd wait with clown-masks on, while the Green Gang (GG), Isaac's ex-IRA pals and allies for this robbery conducted their front-entrance distraction for the robbery!

ISAAC: Everything has to go perfectly. If anything goes wrong, this will not look like a spicy or fun media stunt or social adventure, and the press will eat this up as some odd and random act of new age terrorism! That's not what we want. We want this to feel like a darn Swatch wrist-watch, with all the working gears transparent and interesting for the audience and press.

As the bank opened, Isaac and Tandy and Chris and Isobel (the 'London Four') kept their clown-masks on and synchronized their Swatch wrist-watches, which they all purchased together and wore to the robbery. The London Four sat in the white van parked in the rear of the London Bank, waiting for the bank manager to finish supervising the main vault-room which housed over $30 million worth of diamonds. That's what the London Four wanted to steal that day.

The Green Gang (GG), Isaac's ex-IRA pals and allies for the robbery, knew English princess Kate Middleton was going to be walking down the street by London Bank that morning for a special walking-tour press video about modern English tourism in London. As Kate Middleton arrived and began her video-recorded media event near London Bank, the Green Gang (GG) hopped out of their rented Ford vehicle with masks on and carrying toy water-rifles filled with only water. They stood outside the London Bank with their water-rifles and began dancing. When police monitoring Princess Kate's media event noticed this, they ran over to the bank entrance and questioned what the GG were doing. The GG masked members explained they were simply enjoying the October morning and dancing with their water-rifles for a public message about pedestrian peace while Princess Kate was delivering her media action on camera. The police realized this was harmless positive media PR for Princess Kate's media event about London tourism and thoroughfare and just stood by the GG men as they continued to dance and as Kate continued to deliver her media message on camera.

The London Four then slipped into the bank through the rear entrance carrying toy water-rifles as well, but their rifles were fitted with an inner-plastic protective tubing containing deadly corrosive HCL acid! They told the security guard at the back side of the bank they intended to rob the bank and wielded water-rifles filled with acid and demanded to be promptly escorted to the vault-room where the $30 million diamonds were stored. The security guard asked them if they were members of the front-entrance GG masked-men performance 'sideshow' complementing Princess Kate's media message about London tourism, and Isaac and the London Four replied to the guard, "Of course we are!"

The guard and the bank manager of London Bank escorted the London Four to the vault-room and allowed them to lift the $30 million diamonds and put it in their bag and walk out the rear of the bank again and speed off in their parked white van. The bank manager then ran outside to the front entrance and congratulated the GG masked-men performing their media dance in front of the parked policemen monitoring Princess Kate's media message and explained their inside-men complementary 'mock-heist' of the $30 million diamonds had been performed and that the clown-masked 'London Four' had even performed the mock-heist with a set of fake diamonds, leaving the real diamonds behind! The GG masked-men and the policemen standing outside the front of London Bank stood in bewildered expressions and told the bank manager they weren't connected to the 'London Four' or their 'mock-heist' in any way! The bank manager gasped, realizing they'd all been duped by the London Four.

When the London Four were escorted inside the vault-room that day by the guard and the bank manager, Tandy and Isobel (in clown-masks!) distracted them while Isaac and Chris swapped the $30 million diamonds with fake diamonds they brought with them, later showing the guard and the bank manager they were simply 'lifting' the same 'fake diamonds' they carried inside the bank with them that day. That's why the manager and the guard thought the mock-heist was indeed a media-stunt complementing the dance activity performed by the GG going on outside the London Bank front entrance. It was a perfect heist. Isaac then submitted an anonymous letter to the London Gazette: "We knew of Princess Kate's media message that day outside the London Bank. We also knew that the GG gang were going to show up to do a media-complementary 'dance' in front of the bank to complement Princess Kate's tourism message. We further deduced that this performance would distract the police. We used this opportunity to securely fool the guard and the manager into thinking we're simply performing a complementary inside-job 'mock-heist' to accentuate the front-entrance GG dance during Princess Kate's tourism message. We've donated half of the diamonds value-money to a London orphanage, and our message is simply that London tourism is exciting because England boasts a tradition of catering to only the 'finest' forms of dance. God bless the UK!"

It was clear to the public that the loud message of the London Four was that life in England was never dull and spiced by the intrigue and magic and daring created by people in the modern world invested in the real excitement of living city traffic. The London Four's 'mock-heist' was not portrayed as tourism, as Isaac intended, but rather was painted as a wondrous modern media example of passionate if very eccentric media manipulation. Of course, the $30 million diamonds were insured, so there was even less insult, and no one had to be threatened during the heist. Even kids in the streets began singing praises of the funny Princess Kate's delicious media diorama about English tourism!

The BBC News called the London Four the modern-day Houdini Gang (HG). This was the sort of press about random mischief and adventure that the people needed to help them get over the real world scars of deadly and violent modern terrorism such as 9/11. Isaac breathed in joy with his girlfriend Tandy as they watched the BBC reports on TV with positive headers!

ISAAC: This was orchestrated beautifully. Nothing went without plan. Everyone did what they were supposed to do, which is why the media painted the 'mock-heist' as a dastardly event downplaying the scars and real trauma of otherwise violent terrorism. We must now determine if the $15 worth of the stolen diamonds should be used to fund our recorded trip to Vatican City. God bless the United Kingdom.

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"Money is everything" (Ecclesiastes)