A brilliant till innovation that reduces theft and increases happiness: a human
Listen to article
Narrated by Rod Liddle
A recent hobby of mine is to stand near the self-service tills in my local supermarket and watch the skanks nicking stuff. The usual trick is to waft whatever item — bottle of Archers, family pack of Monster Munch, job lot of frozen pies made from recovered meat by-products — past the scanner but with the barcode facing in the other direction. Nobody cares. Certainly not the poor, harassed checkout assistant, who has to oversee about ten tills and is probably averse to being glassed in the middle of her shift.
It is not just the absence of punishment that has made shoplifting effectively legal in this benighted country; it is also the absence of people. Of human contact. One supermarket has recognised this —
