Hey - Crime Really Does Pay!

This Is A Mixture Of Metaphor And Reality*
Here an aside.  Yes, already!  Back in the days before submersible Remotely-Operated Vehicles, one of the sure-fire ways to get away with a massive insurance fraud was 'Barratry'.  Art?

<sigh> no, Art, not even close

     I shall allow the Guard Hog to take him away and administer a most severe Tazering, as I've got a blog to create.
     Anyway, Barratry.  This took place when an unscrupulous ship's owner, captain and crew took an aging leaking rust-bucket out to sea with a cargo of fresh air, then scuttled it.  They would then put in an insurance claim for their now up-to-date vessel and it's cargo of gold bullion.  Insurance companies would squint suspiciously, and probably have to pay up, as there was no way to prove otherwise.  Also, since the penalty for barratry was originally DEATH, juries were extremely reluctant to find anyone guilty.
     Ah, I see Art is back.  Here, put some salve on those burns.  Art?

See?  You can do it if you try.

     Nowadays, however, any captain trying to practice this would have a great deal of difficulty getting away with it, thanks to the above.  Plus, if he suddenly got extremely vague about the exact location his ship went down - I don't have to draw a picture here.
     Okay, I think we'll call this particular bit the Intro, and move on to what I really wanted to talk about, since this piece is now about how crime doesn't pay.
     Time to put the motley in a pair of slippers and see if it can cross the asphalt lake without sinking!

Probably not

A Cinematic Emetic
Ha! I refer, of course, to that film franchise "The Purge" - an emetic is a variety of purging agent that causes vomiting, just to save you time looking it up - and how it has gone from success to even greater success and from enormous profit to even more enormouser** profits.  Even it's IMDB ratings have gone up.  Art?

Frankly creepy

     For convenience, I shall add in a table here to analyse a few of the facts about this franchise -

Title                                         Cost                             Box Office                    IMDB Score
The Purge                                 £2 million                     £55 million                        5.7   
The Purge: Anarchy                   £5.5 million                  £68 million                        6.5
The Purge: Election Year           £6.25 million                 £73 million                        6.0

     That makes a total of almost £200 million for an outlay of £14 million - or a return of 14:1.  So you can bet your boots or whatever your preferred footwear is, that these films are going to continue to be made.
     In case you have been living on the Moon or at the bottom of the ocean (barratry victim?) then the premise behind the franchise is that in South Canada there is one night a year where all crime is legal.
     So I think this proves today's blog title, and then some.

The latest iteration, already at £20 million

This Is A Bit Borderline
If your long-term memory is still functioning after all those Red Bulls you drank, then you ought to recall Conrad's jolly gloasting about having acquired a softback full of Codewords.  Art?

Note the caption about prizes

     I've been through the whole book a couple of times, trying to avert my eyes from the solutions in the back, and there isn't any competition to enter, despite them going into extensive details about the terms and conditions.
     So.  Is this a simple editorial error?  Or - are they trying to bait purchasers with non-existent prizes?  Enquiring minds want to know the criminal truth!

The Idiosyncracies Of Allotment Names
That's the Allotment of Eden to you, mate, also known as Britain if you want to be boring, or Ultima Thule if you're a bit of a classicist.
     "Saffron Walden" I mused to myself.  "Where does that name originate from?"  Art?

Market day

     It's a market town in Essex, and the "Walden" bit comes from Old English - "Wealh" meaning "Briton" and "Denu", meaning "valley".
     The "Saffron" bit goes back to the 16th century, when the crocus was grown locally and harvested for it's stamens, known as "Saffron" for use in medicine, cooking and <ahem> hanky-panky (supposedly an aphrodisiac).
     So now we all know and are that better informed.  Hooray for BOOJUM!

Saffron

*  I hope that's okay but don't really care if it's not
**  This is now a word.  Because I say so.