Nice rack, lend us a tenner

There has been a study published recently detailing the propensity for people to pose as legitimate folk on that Internet, find vulnerable people to groom, then con then out of literally thousands of pounds by tugging at their heartstrings. Those conducting the study have commented that it seems much more common than they first thought, with the numbers likely to be even higher when you factor in the number of people just too damned embarrassed to report the blag.

You'll be mortified to learn that I find the whole caboodle laughable, as if there is someone out there daft enough to part with their hard-earned just because someone they've never met tells them they've got nice hair. I mean, come on, I get that some people are vulnerable and liable to fall for someone who pays them the right kind of attention, but surely even they get alarm bells when they get requests for £45 cos their beau's clutch is shot.

Don't get me wrong; I can see it happening in a situation where the baddie spends months working their target, meeting them, maybe even interfering with them sexually (consensual of course) before dropping the bomb that they need ten large in the next few days or their fingers will be cut off. Within a few months, plenty of relationships have established a level of trust where such a request no longer feels like a confidence trick. But you've got the draw the line at handing over brass when the only evidence you've got of them is a grainy picture cut from the TV Times depicting a fringe cast member from Hollyoaks.

I wrote a blog of a similar ilk a while ago about a woman who had succumbed to such a ruse, and went on the radio to alert people to the possibility. She suggested that nobody could call her names worse than she'd already called herself, which was asking for trouble, but at least she had the balls to hold her hands up and say "Yep, the game's up. He got me" to at least show that this can happen to people. It's all well and good releasing studies saying it happens to thousands of people a year, but without a victim to come out and describe their experiences, all you're going to get is self-righteous idiots belittling their plight in blogs. I imagine.

At the end of the day, while there's money and emotions in the world, this is going to keep happening. It's a lazy stereotype (something of a trademark on here you might have noticed), but there's always going to be slick-haired lotharios preying on emotional-scarred women who just need a hug in order to get their hands on their wonga (not a euphemism). While it's never a bad idea to expose these sorts of goings-on to help reduce the number of cases, you eventually have to trust people to have a bit of common sense. To paraphrase Homer Simpson, if you're dumb enough to fall for this kind of trick, you deserve to be robbed of all your money. Doh!

Hut movement: Pricey

I'm all for preserving our nation's heritage, be it a famous building, a tree where gravity was supposedly discovered or the chair in which a TV executive first pitched the notion of Big Brother. Such artefacts are a part of our national identity, intrinsically sewn into our culture and as much a part of us as looting and sleeping with Ryan Giggs.

What I do object to though is well-to-do families bursting into tears and begging for public money to help preserve something which is very much within their moral and financial remit to protect.

This week, Roald Dahl's family have asked for a £500,000 donation to move his writing hut from the bottom of his garden into the museum built in his honour to preserve it. Now, if they were on the bones of their arse, I'm sure we could come to some arrangement to preserve such an important piece of history, but his granddaughter Sophie has to be worth a few quid from her modelling and pouting exploits, plus she could pull rank on her titchy husband Jamie Cullum, who must have a few notes stuffed under his car seat, if only to raise it slightly.

Lest we forget that the Roald Dahl estate must be coining it as well. He was a world-reknowned singer songwriter, and certainly to my mind the greatest exponent of bluegrass music in the Western world*, so I'd be amazed if they couldn't scrape at least a percentage of the sum together to preserve his beloved hut.

There's been a reasonable public outcry at this request, presumably along the same lines as my attitude. In these times of austerity and iPad purchasing we can't afford to be giving money to a wealthy upper-class bunch to move a garage from one place to another. I'm sure in the fullness of time they'll stump up, but you've got to admire their balls at chancing it. What next - the Queen asks to borrow a million quid to wallpaper the guest bedroom? I'll be in my cold, cold grave before that happens - there is no guest bedroom at Buckingham Palace.

* I'm joking of course. Dahl was a straight-up rhythm 'n' blues aficionado.