The art of losing isn't hard to master
A quarter of a million pounds' worth of stuff by BBC staff over the last two years. Three times as much lost by government departments, more than £600,000-worth by the MoD alone. Ten thousand pieces of luggage a day gone missing in the USA.
Wheelchairs and wedding dresses at Waverley Station, nearly 9,000 mobile "devices" lost each year in Washington taxis, 85,000 phones (not to mention 21,000 PDAs – remember PDAs? – and "pocket PCs" lost in Chicago in one year, and that was 2005 when stuff was bigger. Lost.
Three hundred mobile phones a week in Disneyland. This stuff is prosaic. What about the lawnmower, the quarter-of-a-million-quid bag of (perhaps, maybe, just, ever-so-slightly moody) Rolexes, the human skulls, the breast implants, and the lawnmower lost on London Transport, except, as in all these cases, when we say "lost" we mean "found". The French have it right. No Lost Property Office for them, but Bureau des Objets Trouvés. Your loss is my find.
Guess where a fishing rod, a chess clock, a toaster, a ballet skirt, three crutches (miracle! miracle!), a miniature Doberman, a milk tooth and a set of dentures were found.
The Munich Oktoberfest. Come on. The chess clock and the Doberman should give it away. And 18 children. (The children were reclaimed.)
Beer and stuff. A dangerous mixture. The wise drinker leaves home with nothing in his pockets except the amount of cash he's prepared to drink, lose or have pinched and, possibly, a bottle-opener. Only a fool goes out for an evening's beerfesting with a ballet skirt, a fishing rod, a toaster and 18 children. Either a fool or someone with an extraordinarily intricate private life.
drive from www.independent.co.uk
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