It just happened to be my birthday. A Friday lunchtime at the start of November. Broad daylight. I had left Oval tube station and was about to turn onto my road. But as I strolled along the pavement, airpods in, replying to happy birthday messages on WhatsApp, the inevitable happened. Snatch. My phone was lifted straight out of my hand by a teenager on a bike. I suppose it served me right for listening to The Rest is Politics at the time.
The police, of course, were completely uninterested when my phone was stolen. My case was closed within 48 hours, despite the theft occurring on a road plastered with CCTV cameras
I immediately felt like a complete mug. Almost every friend of mine in London had warned me about the proliferation of phone theft. I’d read enough newspaper articles about it, too. As such, I was normally more cautious about where and when I used my phone in the capital.
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