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Nobody Is Perfect

Even what you think is a perfect and foolproof plan for doing something usually has some major shortcomings. Here are some stories about how the perfect plans went wrong.

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After weeks of extremely careful planning, seventy-five convicts completely failed to escape from Saltillo Prison in Northern Mexico. In November 1975 they had started digging a secret tunnel designed to bring them up at the other side of the prison wall. On 18 April 1976, guided by pure genius, their tunnel came up in the nearby courtroom in which many of them had been sentenced. The surprised judges returned all 75 to jail.

A house burglar committed a burglary in Detroit in 1968 and left his dog at the scene of the crime. The police soon arrived and shouted `home boy'. They then followed the dog back to the burglar's house. And arrived only seconds after he did.

Attempting to catch a persistent thief in 1978, the Doncaster police set up a secret camera in the changing rooms of a local squash club.
When they played back the film, the police found that all they had succeeded in filming was one of their own policemen wandering round naked and looking for his clothes, which had been stolen.

Intending to steal cash from a supermarket in 1977, a Southampton thief employed a unique tactic. His method was to collect a trolley full of shopping, arrive at her till and put down a £10 note as payment. She would then take the money and open the till, then he would snatch the contents.
He went to the cash desk and put down the £10. She took it and opened the till; but there was only £4.37 in it. Undeterred, the thief snatched that and made his getaway, having lost £5.63 on the raid.

In August 1975 three men were on their way in to rob the Royal Bank of Scotland at Rothesay, when they got stuck in the revolving doors. They had to be helped free by the staff and, after thanking everyone, sheepishly left the building.
A few minutes later they returned and announced their intention of robbing the bank, but none of the staff believed them. When, at first, they demanded £5,000, the head cashier laughed at them, convinced that it was a practical joke.
Considerably disheartened by this, the gang leader reduced his demand first to £500, then to £50 and ultimately to 50 pence. By this stage the cashier could barely control herself for laughter.
Then one of the men jumped over the counter and fell awkwardly on the floor, spraining at his ankle. The other two made their getaway, but got trapped in the revolving doors for a second time, desperately pushing the wrong way.

A Parisian villain broke into a house at the village Lachelle in 1964. Once inside he began to feel hungry and so went in search of a snack. There found his favourite cheese, biscuits and three bottles of champagne.
After a while he began to feel sleepy and decided that he would lie down and digest his meal in comfort. He was arrested next morning fast asleep upstairs in the spare bedroom.

The U.K. firemen's strike of 1978 made possible one of the great animal rescue attempts of all time. Valiantly, the British Army had taken over emergency firefighting and on the 14th of January they were called out by an elderly lady in South London to retrieve her cat which had become trapped up a tree. They arrived with impressive haste and soon discharged their duty. So grateful was the lady that she invited them all in for tea. Driving off later, with fond farewells completed, they accidentally ran over the cat and killed it.

In 1976, on a flight across America, a passenger rose from his seat, drew a gun and took the stewardess hostage.
`Take me to Detroit,' he said.
`We're already going to Detroit,' she replied.
`Oh . . . good,' he said, and sat down again.

In 1978 at a reception held to open the new Anglo-Austrian Society premises in Queen Anne's Gate, London, Pime Minister James Callaghan was asked to unveil a wooden plaque.
`Why don't you tell me when you'd like me to pull the ribbon?' the Prime Minister asked the hordes of photo­graphers crowding round him.
`I tell you what,' he said genially, `I'll count to five and then I'll pull it.'
This he duly did and on the count of five, lights flashed and cameras clicked, as he pulled the ribbon and the plaque fell off the wall.

In 1947, as part of a training exercise, the destroyer, HMS Saintes, was required to fire at a target pulled across its bows by a tug.
It fired a shell, which missed the target, but hit the tug and sank it.

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In England middle names were once illegal.

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