Wednesday, August 10, 2016

the simple pleasure of ransom demands

heya


i suppose it would be prudent, and somewhat wise if that's not the same thing, to clarify that i do not, mostly, either endorse or encourage any action which is deemed to be less than legal. whilst frequent readers would, look you see, know that this blog is in many respects a mere imitation of life and not a guide to it as such, the more passing of reader might be misled, and perish the thought of that happening.

Poundland, or if you like Pound Land, is a place which has yet to cease providing me with items of pleasure and enjoyment, normally for the nominal fee of £1. this week was no different, and a most casual of browse availed me of the opportunity to purchase some most splendid adornments to any or all of our refrigeration units, or if you like fridges. some four hundred adornments in total, no less.



yes, away from the Scooby Doo and Secret Saturdays and, i think, Justice League magnets, you can see approximately 200 magnets in the form of letters and numbers what have been cut out of both newspapers and publications which are printed on paper, such as The Sun.

should that strike you as being the sort of thing that, from a traditional or classical perspective, was employed to craft smart ransom letters of demand with, you are not wrong and the packets of magnets are branded in a way that directly appeals to this.



making ransom demands has been an action we, as humans, have engaged in since, well, since there were at least two of us, for in order for a ransom to work there has to be at least two involved. whilst it's only been in the last 100 or so years that newspaper cuttings have been crafted in a way to allow demands to be known, withholding someone or something from someone who cares about or for the person or object in order to sway their actions or cause them to give you something has been a fairly standard practice.

the theory or thinking behind using newspaper cuttings is that it makes a demand loud and clear, yet is intended to be virtually impossible for any sort of authority to trace or prove was created by the ransom demander. simple, yet effective. 

let's take a quick break from all of this to appreciate the most splendid idea that they boys had recently with one of them inflatable hoop things.




i do know and appreciate that a significant number of family and friends around the world only really come here to hopefully see how the members of my family they like more than they like me are getting along, so it's fair do's for me to do an update to that extent from time to time. 

it might well be the case that you think holding actual physical things, such as people or objects, to ransom is a thing of the past. you may have come to this conclusion on the basis of the fact that it's all "computer ransom" these days, and of course that there hasn't been a decent, juicy ransom story for a good while, what with Bernie Ecclestone's Mum in Law (or similar) being held in such a way recently being the first widely reported kidnapping and ransom in ages. not to be.

as is the case with coercing people to do what you want them to by arranging for pictures to be taken of them as they sleep and sent to them, kidnapping, temporary theft and subsequent ransom demands happen a lot more than you think.  for every one ransom demand what gets reported to the constabulary, there is at least a dozen which are not. they just end with the ransom being paid and everyone getting along with whatever the terms were of that.



by this do i mean to imply that there are roaming, if not roving, gangs of ransom enthusiasts out there opportunistically crafting a living from this age old practice? partially. mostly its something which happens in the corporate, financial, political and media controllers sectors. if you ever see a decision made in such an area that strikes you as being somewhat retarded, if not simply completely arse-headed in nature, bear in mind that the decision taken which caused such a reaction might have been coerced from the maker rather than it being proffered up of their own free will.

what shall i be doing with my smart ransom note magnets? little, i suspect. i rather fancy i will arrange the letters to make obscene statements about certain friends, photograph it and post it to them. other than that, perhaps for fun i shall arrange messages for my family. otherwise, i suspect no, i shall not be using them to make any direct or overt ransom demands; at least not ones which i would care to confess to here.




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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