Phone theft is out of control in London

It just happened to be my birthday. A Friday lunchtime at the start of November. Broad daylight. I had left Oval tube station and was about to turn onto my road. But as I strolled along the pavement, airpods in, replying to happy birthday messages on WhatsApp, the inevitable happened. Snatch. My phone was lifted straight out of my hand by a teenager on a bike. I suppose it served me right for listening to The Rest is Politics at the time.
I immediately felt like a complete mug. Almost every friend of mine in London had warned me about the proliferation of phone theft. I'd read enough newspaper articles about it, too. As such, I was normally more cautious about where and when I used my phone in the capital.

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