As a committed user of our public transport system in the West Midlands, the other week I found myself waiting for the bus home at Wolverhampton bus station.
Now anyone who has frequented this facility in the past few months will know what I’m talking about. When they upgraded the station they introduced a public address system of sorts which intermittently blurts out public information informing us that we can’t smoke there, etc etc. What got me thinking was the one that starts: “Oi you, yes you, with the mobile phone” or words to that effect which politely informs us that we shouldn’t show or use our mobile phone in public because the bloke behind is eyeing it ready to mug us.
On the ocassion in question as I’ve heard this announcement a few times now, I decided to eye up my would be mugger behind me. There stood a young gentleman aged in his late teens to early twenties of afro-caribbean descent. He smiled at me (this may have been something to do with me holding Little Penguin at the time – small babies bring out displays of affection in complete strangers for some reason).
Now, should I believe this bloke behind me is tooled up ready to give me a good kicking for my Nokia 6250i? Perhaps there’s an array of switch-blades and knuckle dusters secretly hidden in those sociology books under his arm? Or could it be that he’s just a student from Wolverhampton College/University on his way home or to see his girlfriend after a long day of mind-numbing lectures on social anthropology. (Just to note, I neither have anything against or believe social anthropology is mind-numbing, actually I quite enjoyed studying it myself).
This however threw me and made me think about the mindset of a mugger. Now if I were a mugger/street robber, use whatever terminology you like, then I would probably make a few assumptions about potential victims based on a good set of averages. Presumably, as I have never been mugged, in the UK anyway, the proceeding would go something like this:
Mugger approaches victim tooled up with a weapon or unarmed but with a few mates. Either grabs, corners or threatens with a weapon the victim and demands items to be passed over. Now the obvious is the wallet/purse (note to any potential muggers, mine’s always empty as I’m skint, so don’t bother). If the victim were a female perhaps items of jewellery or in the case of either sex, maybe a watch (I don’t own one of those either BTW). But for me, after the wallet/purse, my second item to demand would be a mobile phone as given that the vast majority of the adult and even younger population of this country own one, there’s a fair bet any victim is going to possess one.
So that brings me back to the announcement at the bus station. If it’s trying to prevent crime by getting people not to show that they own a mobile phone then unless the potential mugger has half a brain, he/she’s going to demand one from you anyway and even if they don’t, they’ll still nick your wallet/purse which doesn’t do anything to prevent crime in the first instance. However, what it does do is reinforce the steady drip drip feed of information propagated by our media and the like, to us, that we can’t trust other people. Other people are out to do us over, beat the crap out of us, rob us at any opportunity they get. Yes, there are sadly those in our society that do undertake such deeds but they thankfully remain a very small minority and for anyone who leaves their front door in the morning, the odds are that you’re not going to get mugged, shot, beaten about the head at some point during the day. So for now I leave you with this message, have a safe day, but be careful, that bloke behind you might want to nick your mobile. (that was irony for any LibDems or Tories reading)