As students, we lived around the corner from a Dolland & Aitchinson opticians. One evening, after a few drinks, we conspired in a plan to liberate the owl that graced their frontage. So we'd borrowed a ladder from Norm the Mildly Psychotic Milkman's yard (not Norman the Gangster, that's another Norm, and we wouldn't touch his ladder). Midway through said liberation, who should turn up, why yes, if isn't PCs Meddlesome and Spoiler and their insistence that the owl not be liberated.
One stern telling off later we snuck back and took the owl. Be free my little plastic friend. Actually, it was quite big.
The next morning as we swept away hangovers and commonsense dawned, we noted that (a) the owl was now in a primely incriminating position on the sofa and not above D&A and (b) we'd given our actual address to PC Meddlesome. Figuring that it was only a matter of time, we scurried into action, grabbing a spade from Norm the Mildly Psychotic Milkman's yard (he had everything back there), and using that to lever up a paving stone from the scrubby little patio behind our house and make a owl-shaped hole.
So there lies the D&A owl, buried under a Liverpool patio. Never dig up a patio in Liverpool is probably good advice.
If the stature of limitations doesn't apply, this is just a story I made up, OK, and I didn't know anyone involved. Owl, what owl? The police never did turn up.
