"I wouldn't wish to condone flagrant robbery, but come on drilling, abseiling, comedy disguises, blurry CCTV it's riveting, right?" Times columnist Robert Crampton's reaction was not an untypical one to the Hatton Garden jewel heist. Others could barely suppress their admiration.
Under the headline "The Diamond Geezers", the Daily Mirror gave the robbers nicknames such as "Mr Ginger", "Mr Strong" and "The Gent". Ellen Jones in The Independent observed that "since the financial crisis made the super-rich richer, it's hard to sympathise with victims who are perceived rightly or wrongly to belong to this new class".
The Guardian quoted a former armed robber: "Everybody's happy because everybody's skint at the moment and they reckon rightly or wrongly that whoever's lost something can afford it".
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"How about wrongly?" said Dominic Lawson in the Daily Mail. Many of the emptied safety boxes held "precious family items" paid for by a lifetime of hard work. One box had in it a £5,000 watch, bought for a boy's forthcoming 18th birthday; another, Norman Bean, thinks he has lost £35,000-worth of jewellery: "I was shaking. I couldn't believe it".
Much of the jewellery stolen would have been uninsured, like Bean's. "If you can't afford your jewellery insurance, you put it in a safety deposit box, which is going to cost you between £300 and £400 a year, and you know it is the most secure place you can put it," a gem industry spokesman told the BBC.
But this, as Lawson noted, didn't soften the hearts of Guardian readers. "There are more pressing and important issues in this country than feckless rich people who are too tight to look after their property Screw them," wrote one.
It's a characteristic reaction, says Lawson reflective of the mind-set that believes in increasing the top rate of tax and abolishing the privileges of non-doms. Neither move would raise any revenue, but that's not the point: the "real motivation for taxing the rich until the pips squeak' is to make society more equal' and, if they are honest, for the sheer pleasure of it".
Anything that seems to end up making the rich poorer and the poor richer, whether it's a safe deposit raid or a tax hike, has something to be said for it.
That's $4,000 up in smoke
"What's the best box of cigars you've ever had?" a Chinese billionaire once asked David Tang, the FT's agony uncle. Tang said he was proud to be the owner of "an exceedingly rare box of 25 Flying Pigs' by H Upmann". The billionaire immediately said he would like to buy them. They're not for sale, said Tang. The billionaire persisted.
Everything's for sale he said, adding finally: "I'll give you $100,000 for the box". "Without the blink of an eyelid, I seized his right hand and said Done'." He wrote out a cheque straightaway "and I reluctantly handed over the box, which he had not even seen". He then took out two cigars and snipped off the ends. Both men lit up. "It was the most extravagant thing I'd ever done Smoking a $4,000 cigar. It bordered on being obscene."
Tabloid money: I'd rather vote for an empty packet of Hula Hoops
Things were not looking too good for Ed Miliband, saysRod Liddle in The Sun. "Then, shazam! Suddenly a very famous figure from our recent past weighed in on his side. I support Ed, he said! Wonderful news! Yes, it was Tony Blair. I wonder if that was the moment when the British people finally thought right, that has done it for me. There is not a cat's chance in hell I will vote Labour on 7 May. I think I would rather even vote for that doolally woman from the Greens. In fact, I'd rather vote for an empty packet of Hula Hoops. Anything would be better than a party leader who has the support of that smirking charlatan."
Not only did Blair's government illegally invade Iraq, it saddled us with "crippling debts" and "opened the floodgates to the greatest influx of immigrants this country has ever seen". And the Labour party now is still close to the party led by Tony Blair. We must thank him "for reminding us of this".
"Even Scottish nationalists agreed that Ruth Davidson pulled off a miracle in the Scottish leaders' debate she managed to get a Scots audience to clap a Tory," says Louise Mensch in The Sun. "Ruth stuck it to Nicola Sturgeon on college places and a new independence referendum and to Labour's Jim Murphy on the economy. She even got applause by telling the audience they should pay prescription rates for a better NHS, saying: I don't want the binman paying for the duke's daughter'."
"Amanda Holden says she wants to insure her nipples for £1m," writes Carole Malone in the Daily Mirror. She's anxious that her "best assets are protected", as she puts it. "So is Amanda saying her career as a TV judge and actress is based entirely on her looks, in particular her boobs? If a man said that, he'd be slated as a pervert and a raging sexist."
