Con men and Karma.

A long time ago, when the Woolworth's store was an important part of every high street, I used to let my mates down by not shoplifting.

We often went through by train from Easterhouse to the cinema or swimming pool in Airdrie, Coatbridge or Shettleston. After a swim or a film we would descend on the local Woolworth's with whatever money we had left. A lot of the guys I used to pal around with would habitually go for a "five finger discount" and emerge with pockets crammed with marbles, toy soldiers or sweets filched from the pick 'n' mix. I had to live with the fact that I believed there was no point in stealing. The Catholic Church insists that, if you ever want to have the sin forgiven, you have to give back any ill-gotten gains. I used to take a lot of ribbing on the train home to Easterhouse station. I used to compound this by actually paying for a ticket. This conscientiousness pretty much continues to the present day.

(I remember Anne getting more than a little annoyed when we were trying to sell our first flat so that we could move to a "proper" house since Claire was on the way. I insisted on telling potential buyers about faults that might have been missed by their surveyor. )

Despite this hardwired scrupulosity, or because of it, I love films / books about heists and con men.

Thieves can be entertaining in fiction. Donald Westlake's Parker novels are superb and portray the criminal as a professional who sees robbery as a job. The same author's Dortmunder novels take a lighter approach but are equally entertaining. Of late I've also found myself following the misadventures of Chris Ewan's good thief Charlie Howard with quite a bit of enthusiasm.

I've already mentioned the NBC mystery movie series "McCoy" in which Tony Curtis played a con artist but in the present day I have a great fondness for "Hustle" (just started a new series on BBC!) and "Leverage". I've also tried to get Claire, my daughter, to watch "The Sting" which always remains in my top 10 films of the '70s- and that's a decade which contained a lot of tough competition. I've yet to meet someone who doesn't like this film. Let's face it. Fictional con men are a class apart from the average thief. The clue is in the designation; con ARTIST.

Sadly, real-life conmen are, for the most part, evil, cynical bastards. Fictional, "Robin Hood-ish" scam artists often quote an aphorism that goes along the lines of "You can't con an honest man". In the real world you can cheat the poor and the desperate who are the victims of most scams. In my job as a cancer information nurse I come across the damage caused by reptiles selling bogus cancer cures several times a week, every single week in life. There are hundreds of web sites making false claims about quick and easy cancer cures. One of the biggest stresses in my work is trying to pick up the pieces after explaining to someone the reason why the very expensive "medicine" they've bought for a loved one has no scientific validity and no proven success in actuality.

I often dream about being able to turn the tables on con men in real life. Victoria Coren, the journalist and broadcaster, has delighted me no end by making things uncomfortable for a bunch of leeches known as "the Jolley Gang". Led by an ex-magistrate called Richard Jolley this mob turned up at a memorial service held in honour of the great Alan Coren, Victoria's father. In her original article about the gang she revealed that she planned to embarrass its members most publicly by setting up a fake funeral service for a fictional celebrity ("Sir William Ormerod"). The only problem with her plan was that, after setting up a fake website in tribute to Sir William and ensuring his death was announced in the broadsheets, she didn't have the heart to carry out an actual public humiliation. This despite the fact that several of the vermin had written to her, in her guise as the late Ormerod's boyfriend, proclaiming their admiration for the late philanthropist and asking for tickets to the memorial service.

In a bizarre sequel to this abandoned revenge Fate stepped in and dealt a fatal blow to one of the gang. As detailed in a further article this could be evidence for the Buddhist belief in Karma......