Suzy, Drinker Of Coffee

Never mind 666, here's the new number of the beast...

... and it's 420. I'm not referring to the batch of ex-Central Leyland Tiger's (419-423) that were refurbished for Strathtay either.

According to El Reg, the number 420 has various notables...

"The police team assembling Britain's national Auto Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) database have got some interesting results in. Making the use of ANPR computers that spook traffic using roadside CCTV cameras, police in the UK made 420 arrests a week in January.

Then again in February, the combined efforts of 43 British police forces nabbed 420 criminals a week using ANPR. John Dean, the national ANPR co-ordinator for the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO), says the February figures are preliminary.

Nevertheless, these figures are very odd indeed. Those 420 arrests a week are the latest results from stage three of ACPO's "Laser" ANPR project, which involved the use of ANPR by all Britain's 43 police forces. As it happens, the Laser two pilot, in which 23 police forces used ANPR for a year to the summer of 2004, reported that one car in every 420 stopped by the ANPR team was a stolen car containing stolen goods.

This is where it gets spooky. In February last year, 420 people were "accurately" stopped by Metropolitan police ANPR in London (civil libertarians might want to note that 3,318 more people were mistakenly stopped by police after they were falsely identified by the system).

While in the City of London, Operation Daimon, using a "mobile ANPR vehicle" over two days in August 2004, "produced 420 hits" out of the 6,900 registration plates it read.

As it happens, the growth of the network of CCTV cameras in Wales has been justified numerous times on a flimsy bit of evidence that over 12 months to May 2004, cameras in Brynmawr, Blaina, and Abertillery recorded 420 "incidents", an unspecified number of which led to convictions.

That's quite a coincidence, because the Crime Reduction Programme (CRP), through which, amongst other things, the British government funded the growth of the world's largest CCTV network, had a total budget of £420m.

If this doesn't get your conspiracy alarm bells ringing, you need to smoke some more pot. Then note that most modern CCTV cameras have a 420 line resolution. Take another lug, and let's get back to the mystical powers the number 420 endows on those who wield power.

The Stonehenge People's Free Festival beloved of druids, hippies and peacenik crusties in the late 70s had its last summer solstice party in 1985, when police broke it up and apparently arrested 420 revellers at the legendary Battle of Beanfield.

AND THEN... near the end... the bit that sealed it for me...

..."Adolf Hitler was born on 4/20, or 20 April."

Enough said - so, 420 is the new number of the beast, thanks to the leader of the Third Reich, and the UK speed camera budget...

... until the next day, when the 419'ers began complaining.

"Our illuminating piece yesterday on the figure 420 stirred a certain feeling of unease among some Reg hacks who noticed a chilling sequential relationship between this new number of the beast and Nigeria's favourite numeral: 419.

Were, we wondered, the two in some way related? Was the dark hand of conspiracy at the controls of a black helicopter so vast that the mere thought of it might obscure the midday sun?

In short: yes.

419 is, as regular readers know, commonly used to abbreviate Section 419 of the Nigerian Penal code relating to advance fee fraud. Hence 419 scam, 419er, and so forth.

It's also the year in which the Visigoths invaded Spain (AD), a London bus route between Richmond and Hammersmith..." (the latter complete with a link to the 419 page on Robert Munster's London Bus Routes site...)

posted by Suzy Scott @ 23:31