The Even Greater Tokyo Region

The Sunflower Bandit

Last time on the Great Re-Migration, I showed you around the house and all the wonderful things there are to be done. However, there is a darker side of our neighbourhood: the underbelly of crime.

The Russians have been busy over the last year tilling the fields, plowing, and lovingly tending to their crops, and this summer has a substantial harvest. There are tomatoes, cherry-tomatoes, potatoes, lettuces and freakishly-shaped courgettes that I am not sexually secure enough to describe. Here, see what I mean?


The keen observer may have noticed in earlier photos that there were also sunflowers in our garden. Well, the darker side of our neighbourhood showed itself when a distraght Russian said to me: "someone stole my sunflower."

Now, I am never quick to judge, and I always believe in the good of humanity. I mean, what kind of self-respecting person would steal a sunflower from a small front garden? Surely there is some logical explanation. Take a look at the evidence for yourself:No, it was definitely stolen. But seriously, who steals a sunflower? That's like going into the cancer ward at a children's hospital with a thumb-tac and popping all the balloons. So obviously, we live in a dark underworld where we can trust no-one.

Let us imagine a world where stealing sunflowers was okay. Actually, you don't have to imagine. I have recreated that future with the help of sophisticated image-interfacing software.

It's pretty chilling future, I know. It is a future I never hoped I hoped I would never be a part of, but now it is here.

Of course, all of this is just a way to conveniently link to a masterful and under-rated (or rather - if it were a word - "under-known") Monty Python skit, which I have always named "The Lupin Bandit." It is in fact called "Dennis Moore".



Here is Part 2

And here is Part 3.

So as a precaution, the rest of the sunflowers were harvested, not quite yet ripe. Now they are out to dry in the living room. Now if any evil neighbour wants to steal them, they'll have to deal with a home-security system. That will learn them.