The ace Matthew Norman on the crime of the century:

Myself — not that I’d given a minute’s thought to the matter before now, of course — I’d take my five-million-pound cut, wait for a moonless night and head for the Normandy coast in a fishing boat. Airports, car ferries and especially Channel Tunnel trains are out of the question with All Ports Bulletins in effect throughout the land; but given a following wind and a bit of luck, a tiny fishing vessel should make the beach at Trouville or Honfleur undetected by French coast guards.

Once arrived, the next step would be to launder the money, very slowly, in the casinos to be found in every French coastal town. It’s an old and well-known scam, but with caution it should be OK.

Whether the Tonbridge Mob will follow this blueprint is anyone’s guess, but it will be the hope of us all that whatever laundering method they employ will fail, and that they are swiftly apprehended.

Then, as is traditional with major fiscal offences, they can spend twice as long in jug as they would have done for committing a couple of murders.

For the merest flavour of the “oh shit, what are we going to do now?” moment these villains must be experiencing at this minute in time, I heartily recommend the final episode of season two of the mighty, mighty, The Shield.

To fund their retirements, the frighteningly appealing bent cop/sadist/monster Vic Mackey and his knuckle-headed colleagues on LA’s Farmington Precinct anti-gang Strike Team have robbed an Eastern European mob’s “money train” of crime-supplied cash. Back at their hideout, they stand around the table admiring the Kilimanjaro of cash. One by one, their laughter dies as they realise the sheer enormity of their crime…