When you take two eight year old's bowling, you drive them in a car in the daytime and park as near as possible, because bowling alleys aren’t sited next to John Lewis, M&S or Waitrose, they’re usually sandwiched in between Hamed’s taxis, Winston’s cafe and the local knocking shop masquerading as a Thai nail salon. So when you return several hours later, it shouldn’t really come as a surprise to find an empty space between the two BMW’s where you'd parked your elderly car in the smug assumption that if anyone was looking to steal a car, yours would come pretty low down on their list.
Wrong.
When you want to rob a bank, you don’t take the flash 180 mph BMW with high visibility spinning chrome wheels belonging to the local drug baron guaranteed to attract the attention of the police, you choose a nondescript car which sails under police radar. Unfortunately, when stealing a car that shouts school run for your getaway vehicle, it’s floor littered with sweet wrappers and a just William stories CD jammed in the player, it’s wise to check it out before using it on your planned blag. Had somebody bothered to do so then the police might not have had reason to stop them a few nights later for a broken rear light, and when the license plate flagged up as stolen they knew they were onto a winner. But even they were surprised after removing four burly male passengers shoehorned into the small car to find baseball bats, balaclavas and ammonia when they opened the boot.
blag (blæɡ) —n. a robbery, esp with violence.
