Last Sunday the police helicopter, two police dogs, policemen on motorbikes and a quad bike chased four Albanian asylum seekers in the field behind my house. I will leave it to Human Rights Watch to speculate on what kind of asylum they were seeking, but I was willing to make a generalisation. For the first time since moving here I have started locking our outside doors.
That action took me back to 1996 when I had my first big “pay day”. We sold a business and to my total amazement and disbelief a large chunk of spondulix turned up in my bank account. This led me to the subject of security, which I will cover now for the benefit of anyone who comes into a fortune after growing up in a household where there was no need to worry about theft because there was nothing to steal.
Most chavs in this situation (that includes me, footballers, lottery winners, pop stars) go out and buy an expensive car and a mansion. In the circles I move in they are called a [blank] off car and a [blank] off house. This is not “conspicuous consumption” of the kind that Veblen refers to when he accuses the better off of buying things to flaunt their superiority. It is an act of revenge and vindication. It is saying [blank] off to a long list of people, including all the people who said you would never make it, all the people who tried to stop you, the competitors who tried to rub you out, the suppliers who ripped you off, the taxman who gets his share for nothing, and others, like the school teachers who didn’t like you, the snobs who wouldn’t let you join their cricket club and anyone else you hold a grudge against. Your [blank] off objects look great. Then as you stand back and admire them, you realise you just painted a large bullseye on yourself and your family. You are now a target for both types of criminal, opportunist and organised. Neither gives a stuff about your humble origins, how hard you worked, the sacrifices you made, the risks you took etc etc. You are not the “deserving rich”, you are just another source of income.
There is no “new money” guide to help with this. Security is one of the many new things you pick up as you go along. It works on a sliding scale. The richer you are the more you need. I was on the lower rungs. My next-door neighbour, who had a forty-acre lake and a ten-bedroom house with 60 acres of grounds, hand crafted statues, two swimming pools and had fallen out with Putin, was much further up the ladder.
I started by putting security fencing around the 4 acre garden and gates at the end of the drive. The bill for that was over £20,000. This established a perimeter. The message from this which is written on the gate, is: Do not cross without permission, if you are inside the fence without an invite, you are not a legitimate visitor. That’s enough to deter casual criminals.
That leaves serious criminals who do crime for a living. As a newly rich law-abiding person you struggle to see into their minds. If you come across one, when they are at work, you are very keen to find out what type they are; what are they willing to do to secure their winnings? Do they want to creep in, take stuff and run away before they are discovered? If they are discovered, are they ready to use violence to escape? Or, are they totally professional and willing to use violence from the off to maximise their return?
If you buy a mansion, you better be ready to think this through. It was only after we had the keys to the front door that it truly dawned on me. I looked down at them. They didn’t seem enough. My biggest concern was what might happen when I was away on business. What protection would my wife and children need?
There is a vast industry waiting to take money off you to supply security. Door and window locks, sensors, alarms, cctv, security patrols, safes, safe rooms. All of which can be defeated by the pros. What we needed was a countermeasure that would deal with the nightmare scenario of an intruder in the house. Knives and guns are for Hollywood. The answer was obviously a dog. My wife agreed. I suggested a Labrador. She laughed “Pah! they let people in. What we need is a Rhodesian Ridgeback”. I laughed. I thought she had made it up. I played along, “What about a Devil Hound of the Baskervilles or an alligator”. “Wendy and Simon have three of them. They’ll be in. They’re farmers. They are always in. You can go and have a look”. It was a Saturday morning; the children were in the car. They were up for it. They knew the dogs.
I parked at the end of their drive and got out. My wife locked the car doors and waved me on. At the gate there was a sign “Beware Dogs”. She waved again. I opened the gate. I walked along the path. Nothing. The next gate was to the house. Its sign said. “No, really, BEWARE dogs”. I looked back and my concerns were dismissed “What’s the matter? Scared?”. I opened the gate, took one step and the ground shook. Bounding towards me barking furiously, were three huge male dogs of light brown colour that were shaped like a cross between a gigantic labrador and a greyhound. When they got to me, they slammed on the anchors and started roughing me up. They had impressive teeth, but they remained holstered. Their method of intimidation was pushing. I call it “aggressive leaning”. When a 50kg dog leans on you it takes effort to stand your ground. I wasn’t showing any aggression, but I wasn’t willing to take another step. Not even backwards. I was sold. This was Security. Rescue came from an upstairs window in the farmhouse. “Hector, Hugo, Otto” Simon shouted. They bumped a bit more for good measure but turned around and slouched off. “I bet you won’t do that again,” said Simon.
We got one.
[A Rhodesian Ridgeback, bred for protecting stock from lions and leopards. This one’s name is Brian]
A few months later, when our Rhodesian Ridgeback was about ten months old (mentally a puppy but more or less full size) we arrived home from a social event on a stormy winter’s evening. After we got in there was a knock on the door. My wife was closest to it, so she said, “What’s that?”. “Probably just the wind” I said. Our dog knew better. She silently got up and as my wife opened the door, she pushed in front growling in a way that suggested there was business. The rain drenched person at the door took a step back. The dog had him locked in her sights. I moved forward and broke the silence. “What can we do for you then?” I said. He blurted out “you’ve got to help me; I’ve been chased down your drive by people who are trying to kill me”. This was a first I thought. He had blue hair, jeans, and a bomber jacket. He was in his early thirties. Medium height, slim build, looked a bit wasted. Possibly a drug user. “I tell you what we’ll do. We’ll call the police. How about that?”. He swallowed; I got the impression the police weren’t his natural allies, but he agreed. “You better tell them I’ve got a record” he added, helpfully. With the police enroute I thought it a good idea to get him outside. The dog was still staring him out and growling. I put her on a lead, picked up a big Maglite torch (cosh) and said, “Let’s wait outside”. He couldn’t object. As we whiled the time away, I started some light conversation. ”What’s your record for then?” I said, “Oh breaking and entering… “, then realising his mistake he added “but only commercial premises”. The police arrived very quickly. One officer took him to one side, the other spoke to me. “What sort of dog is that?” he said. I told him, then he said. “Dogs are better than alarms. Word will get around that you have a dog. Unless you’ve got something they specifically want to nick they will avoid you and turn over a house with no dog. They don’t care about alarms”. The other officer came back. Our guest had arrived equipped for work. He had a large screwdriver that could be used for opening doors or windows. They took him away. The policeman told me to give my dog a treat and when I asked, “Is there anything better than a dog for security”, he paused and said “Yeah… two dogs”.
[Security section]. Do not pat on head until your credentials are vetted. That is where teeth are kept]
We got another Ridgeback. Since 1997, we have always had at least two and sometimes four. In over twenty years we only had one other incident. On that occasion, it was a dark winter’s evening, and I noticed a car pull into our drive. The gates were open as my wife was expected back. I presumed it was her, but a couple of minutes later she hadn’t come in. I went to the front door to look out and there, no more than 12 inches away, I looked straight into the eyes of a man wearing a balaclava. It was a fright for both of us. The door wasn’t locked but it had a big bolt that I rammed home. At this our two dogs came running from the lounge barking. The intruder was running back to the car where his accomplice was waiting. When I judged he could make it, I opened the door and let the dogs out. They raced after him barking like demons, and so did I, also barking. It seemed like the right noise. The car sped away and the three of us dusted ourselves down and looked at each other in a satisfied way. “They won’t be back” we barked.
[My son’s Ridgeback. Friendly greeting after work]
This happened at a time when I was getting threatening phone calls. I don’t know who from. I was in dispute with a software supplier. I owned the UK franchise for the system. It was an enterprise application for use by all employees in a global customer, but in practice it was unstable and despite frequent patches new issues materialised and big clients with big lawyers wanted their money back.. The software supplier was unhappy as this had the potential to undermine their valuation prior to an investment round. Maybe it was a coincidence, but the voice on the phone was North American and so was the software company. Having made threats to me and my family, the caller just sat silently. I sat silently too. This would last from a few minutes to half an hour. I waited for him to end the call. We got to know each other’s breathing really well. I didn’t go the police I escalated the dispute and engaged a top firm of lawyers and filed an action for breach of contract. I couldn’t pay to take it to court. Standing behind their shitty software had bled me dry, but they didn’t know that and they didn’t want the bad publicity. The threats stopped.
There is an important message here on legal matters. In corporate law the party who spends most wins the dispute. I would never have taken it to court. I couldn’t outspend an well funded company. I bluffed. The key message is: forget justice, forget the merits of your case, if you are not going to outspend the other party, just walk away. It’s a legal system not a justice system.
Since we are passing this way, let’s talk about this form of crime. It is rife within the tech and biotech start up world. It revolves around the process of company valuation. When I was at Unilever operating at a senior level only two people understood how this valuation method makes money in tech. Odd because it’s easy to understand. What they could never get is that you don’t have to make a margin or trading profit. You just need to get investors to agree that your technology works and will one day be a big business. Then you calculate a theoretical value of the business based on a formula that looks at what successful companies today were worth at the same stage of development that your business is at now. The magic formula that is commonly used for software companies is the multiple of revenues. If your company has $10m of sales but makes a $20m loss, it can still be worth $300m if the norm for valuing your type of software is 30X sales revenues ($10m x 30 = $300m). Why big company execs found that so hard to follow is a mystery to me. Anyway, I am sure you have already worked out the potential for fraud and deception. Some unscrupulous firms exaggerate the performance and benefits of their systems and make all sorts of false promises in return for clients signing sales contracts and handing over money, remember every $1 handed over as sales revenue is worth an extra $30 to the value of the firm. This theoretical value converts into real money when new investors buy shares in the company. At that point the people who were misleading their clients can sell some of their shares for large sums.
The situation I described above, when I was receiving threatening phone calls, was a scenario of this type. The software did not work and based on my long experience I believed it never would. After a long period of patching it up I had been using my money to pay back clients and pay the wages and rent. I felt it was time for the company to face it and pull the plug. The founders disagreed. They either thought they could make it work or were willing to lie about it so they could get another round of funding and cash some of their stake. The sums ran into millions. With this amount of money at stake, crime on a very wide spectrum is possible. From telling a few lies to arranging for people who are a nuisance to meet with an accident. From your individual point of view, you have difficult decisions to make. Your judgement is based on experience. You might be wrong but if you honestly believe it won’t work (and history is full of tech and biotech that didn’t work in the end, Theranos is the most recent scandal), then even if you can make a few million by keeping quiet, you are morally bound to be honest and pull out. That is true even if you stand to lose your shirt (as I was in this case). With reference to the title of this piece – Security – if you play the Great Game of startups on the big money tables you shouldn’t be surprised when you come across credible business people who turn out to be willing to break rules to make money. If you get to the point where you are willing to pull down the whole House of Cards, you need security to give you the confidence to deal with them.
When we get to this level of risk if you can’t afford to shell out hundreds of thousands a year in physical personal protection you might as well get a dog. Or, two dogs. But be realistic. If the bad guys want something they will get past anything including dogs. In 2018, my former neighbour, Nikolai Glushkov was strangled with his own dog’s lead, probably by the FSB. His dog “Ridge”, a Rhodesian Ridgeback, who we knew and liked, was also killed. Ridge would have put up a fight. I don’t know how they got past him, poison a tranquiliser? Nikolai was Russian so we will never know. UK intelligence services were caught with their trousers down.
Nikolai Glushkov’s daughter appeals for witnesses a year after his murder | UK news | The Guardian
Getting back to ODCs (Ordinary Decent Criminals), my advice is based on common sense. Professional thieves who can get past dogs don’t rob on spec. They have done their research and are there to take specific high value, portable things. Watches, jewellery, art, cash, cars, stuff that can be easily disposed of worth tens of thousands of pounds. These are items of “conspicuous consumption” in the Veblen sense of buying stuff beyond its utility for the sake of “pecuniary emulation” (showing off). The obvious solution is: don’t have that stuff. Except for cars who needs it? It’s all bollocks. Most high value assets don’t do things that much better than a lower value asset. A Rolex tells you the same time as a Mickey Mouse watch. Is original art really worth that much more than a copy? Jewellery is an infantile vanity purchase. Don’t own it. Obviously, cars are different. For a start I like them. High value cars are an exception because they have greater utility. They are more comfortable; they go faster, and they make an impression when you arrive somewhere (that you can turn to your advantage in a business environment). I think my friend with the balaclava was probably a car-jacker not a contract killer. He was probably hoping to find the key to my Porsche hanging by the door and drive off with it. I know Porsche owners who have suffered this. I know one who was woken up with a gun in his face by a man with an East European accent (another asylum seeker?) who wanted the keys to his car. He handed them over. The police caught them as they were speeding to the channel ports.
On cars my recommendation is: don’t leave your key by the door or anywhere obvious but if you have a really valuable car, and a professional thief knocks on your door and asks to take it, let them have it. They do it for a living and you are an amateur. They won’t be planning to spend time in prison, so they will be practiced and equipped in the arts of escape. Unless you are qualified in hand-to-hand combat or happen to have a loaded shotgun that you are willing to use, then … let them have it (the car).
The subject of self-defence divides law abiding society into two. One group (Daily Mail readers) believes there is no limit to the force you can use if someone is in your house. The other side, Guardian readers and the criminal justice system believe you must limit your force to a reasonable level. Having experienced the emotion of looking into the eyes of a balaclava hooded intruder without any knowledge of the crime he intended to commit I can’t imagine saying “I say old boy, would you mind awfully, filling in this form so I can determine what is a reasonable level of force to use on you for the crime you are in the process of executing?”. Rather than this very English courtesy, I think you are entitled to think the worst and use the maximum force you can lay your hands on. If Nikolai had a shotgun, he might have shot the state sponsored assassin. If I had a shotgun, I think I might have used it. The crime being planned might have been murder. rape or kidnap. By the way, there are over 7,000 kidnappings a year in the UK. Kidnap for ransom is under-reported in the media because police and the press cooperate closely to keep things quiet to help with negotiations. One last thing about weapons, don’t reach for a weapon if you know you won’t use it. The other party will presume you will and might reach for a similar or bigger weapon in self-defence and, unlike you, they won’t hesitate.
Prior to my big payday, I had limited sympathy for rich people worrying about security – “Oh dear” I would think, “How inconvenient it must be being wealthy”. Now that I am in the top 10% of the top 1%, have I changed my view? No. When I hear of someone having their Rolex stolen off their wrist by a knife wielding scooter thief, I don’t feel I am on the side of the thief, but I do think it’s asking for trouble to walk around with £30,000 strapped to your arm. You are on the right side of the law but the wrong side of common sense. I apply the same logic to people who increase their risk of being a victim of sexual crime by exercising their legal right to wear certain types of clothing or adopting behaviour that impairs their judgement or defences. They are also legally right but logically wrong for playing a dangerous game with the odds. I don’t understand why this is a controversial position. It shouldn’t be. It is not sexist or a moral judgement or taking sides. It is just a logic statement based on probability and risk.
To wrap it up. If you have been lucky or hard working enough to become richer than most other people, for your own sake, you must take account of the fact that there are people out there who will use criminal methods to steal a share of your good fortune. The criminal justice system is not enough to protect you. You need to protect yourself. Ok, it is true what Crimewatch says: the UK is a comparatively law abiding and safe society. But it is just as true to say that the UK has plenty of nasty criminals and you will almost certainly be a victim at some point. The positive news is that the best thing you can do to protect yourself is to get a dog, or more than one dog. Not only do they protect you and your stuff, they will get you up and exercise you and will provide you with a level of devotion and emotional support far beyond your capacity to repay them. Buy a dog(s).
