chicadee

11 sheep were stolen off Jeremy Clarkson's farm this week, and the first thing he did was apologise to the police for sounding like a man from 1856. He counted the flock with Kaleb and found 16 Easycares where there had been 27. Somebody took 4 in every 10 sheep he owns, off 1,000 acres with a film crew on it most days, on an evening when nobody was filming. Then he rang it in. Once you get through 700 hours of recorded messages, he said, he got a girl on the line and told her he knew he sounded like he was from 1856, but he had had some sheep stolen. She took his name and address and said, oh, not your Easycares. She watches the show. His message to whoever has them is to put them back. In 1831 the courts of England and Wales sentenced 162 people to death for stealing sheep. It had carried the rope since 1741, and Parliament only took it off the capital list in 1832, when the sentence became transportation for life. A man who lifted 11 Easycares in 1856 went to Australia and did not come back. NFU Mutual's figures in May had good news in them. Rural crime overall fell 6% last year, to £41.5m, with £9.3m of stolen machinery recovered. Livestock theft went the other way. Up nearly 30%, to £4.5m. The insurer's own phrase for it now is highly organised, which means a lorry, a plan and a buyer before the animals are loaded. There is one dedicated livestock theft officer in the United Kingdom. One, for the whole country, and the insurance company pays for him. Clarkson is the one victim in Britain who can get it into The Sun by Thursday. The farm 4 miles down the road has the same lorry, the same night and no film crew, and when 11 ewes go out of that field nobody counts them. In 1831 the country hanged a man for it. In 2026 it puts you on hold.