Sunday, 26 February 2012

25 Feb 2012 - Garden gnome insured for one million pounds

After learning of the show 'QI' with Stephen Fry, I decided to watch an episode on ABC iView. The show is very entertaining, has at least four comedians each episode, discussing various topics and has many random facts. The one the piqued my interest tonight was about garden gnomes. In 1847 garden gnomes were first introduced to Britain, by Charles Isham. He imported the gnomes from Germany in the hopes that by having the statues of gnomes in his garden he would be able to attract real gnomes. Lampy is the only remaining garden gnome, of the original twenty-two which were imported by Charles Isham, is now on display in Lamport Hall (home of the Isham family in Northamptonshire, England), and insured for one million pounds.

Our family had a few garden gnomes when I was growing up, but I don't hold much affection for them, so if I had a garden gnome that was insured for that much money, I would be staging an abduction! I mean really, I know it may be the original garden gnome in Britain, but one million pounds is an incredible motive for stealing. A kleptomaniac would be motivated by less. Also it wouldn't exactly be a surprise that a garden gnome was stolen, people do it all the time. I have even heard stories where somebody has stolen a friend's gnome, travelled around the world with it, taken pictures of it in various locations, then sent the photos back to their friend! I also read in a Wikipedia article, that a French man was arrested on suspicion of stealing as many as 170 garden gnomes! In my opinion, stealing garden gnomes is not a new idea, they are not really that appealing and if you have a one worth a million pounds, you should really just arrange for it to be stolen.

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