Oz? Oz? I'm coming to get you Ozwald...

First it was Hugh Johnson’s priceless garden antique  and now it’s Michael Broadbent’s bicycle. Yes, dear readers, a crime-wave seems to be sweeping over Britain’s most revered wine writers.

Back in March this year,  Mr Johnson had a 17th century astronomical sphere  ”half inched” from his Essex garden. Johnson, the legendary glass sniffer, lives in Saling Hall in the village of Great Saling and often opens up his gardens to the proletariat (God bless yer Guvnor). A reward has been offered but no news yet…

The tale of Broadbent’s bike is, with respect to Lord Hugh, a little more distressing. Stolen from his garage at the beginning of June, Broadbent describes the bike as “a very old white Dutch ladies bike with a basket on the front and back”. Ladies bike Michael?

The bike was regularly featured in Broadbent’s Decanter column and was so beloved that those nice chaps at Decanter clubbed together to buy him a colourful branded bicycle helmet. Unfortunately that was stolen as well.

So, who’s next? On the recent BBC4 show about Berry Bros,  Jancis Robinson was seen pointing her pink Flip camera at unsuspecting winemakers. I’m worried what signals this may have sent out to Britain’s criminal underworld. You could get £20 for that Flip from Monkey Joe at Kentish Town West. Watch out Jancis.

What’s absolutely certain is that no one could possibly steal Malcolm Gluck’s ego. I mean, where would you find a getaway van big enough?

This video is entitled “Behind the scenes at the Decanter Fine Wine Encounter 2008″ and it’s a real joy to behold – in the sense that it is utterly awful.

The video opens with a shot of the hired help polishing glasses in a kitchen whilst our hapless (personality free) narrator asks one of the poor buggers to hold up the glass so he can give profound commentary along the lines of ”What we have here is a Reidel glass”.

We then get some extraordinary “fly on the wall” footage of unfunny people pretending the camera isn’t there followed by some Champagne quaffing toffs to provide a beautiful juxtaposition with our opening shot of minimum wage glass cleaners.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGUUuYmva_o]

And if you like this then how about some footage of Tim Stanley-Clarke (in what looks like Holloway Prison) decanting Port.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cxjsvj47wqY]