....you can't con an honest man.
There are two cons in this episode. There's the cheap and nasty one, where a 'retired military man' asks a shopkeeper to mind a supposedly non-valuable painting. A little while later a woman comes in and tells the shopkeeper the painting is actually valuable and she will pay good money for it, please tell the owner.
Now, the *honest* person will just pass the message on to the 'military man' when he comes back, give him the business card the woman left and return the painting. But if the shopkeeper isn't completely honest, they offer the owner a sum for the painting which is LESS than the woman offered but more than the owner had previously said he'd paid, planning to sell it to her - or to someone else - themselves for a fat profit. When they try to do that, they find out they've been had.
Hustle has a similar short con with a dog!
The other con artist in this is actually closer to one of Hustle's long cons (and actually this is where I part company with Hustle's guiding philosophy because not all the people potentially being conned are dishonest and the main mark, Pierre's, 'dishonesty' is of the womanising variety rather than greed). This sort of person often flies under the radar because he hides his frauds under the cloak of being an 'entrepreneur'. Frankly, this word often seems to be code for dodgy dealings.
Perhaps because he's no stranger to a slightly dodgy deal himself, Lovejoy spots both con artists straight away and sets out to put a spanner in their works. Possibly because friends of his are involved rather than from conscience or love of the rule of law, but nevertheless he thwarts both con artists.
In the process he even seems to miss out on an evening where Lady Jane was giving signals that she might actually be about to succumb to his advances!
It's an entertaining episode, in the same way Hustle is entertaining, because we can see what is going on. It's also a clean sweep of victories for Lovejoy.
There are two cons in this episode. There's the cheap and nasty one, where a 'retired military man' asks a shopkeeper to mind a supposedly non-valuable painting. A little while later a woman comes in and tells the shopkeeper the painting is actually valuable and she will pay good money for it, please tell the owner.
Now, the *honest* person will just pass the message on to the 'military man' when he comes back, give him the business card the woman left and return the painting. But if the shopkeeper isn't completely honest, they offer the owner a sum for the painting which is LESS than the woman offered but more than the owner had previously said he'd paid, planning to sell it to her - or to someone else - themselves for a fat profit. When they try to do that, they find out they've been had.
Hustle has a similar short con with a dog!
The other con artist in this is actually closer to one of Hustle's long cons (and actually this is where I part company with Hustle's guiding philosophy because not all the people potentially being conned are dishonest and the main mark, Pierre's, 'dishonesty' is of the womanising variety rather than greed). This sort of person often flies under the radar because he hides his frauds under the cloak of being an 'entrepreneur'. Frankly, this word often seems to be code for dodgy dealings.
Perhaps because he's no stranger to a slightly dodgy deal himself, Lovejoy spots both con artists straight away and sets out to put a spanner in their works. Possibly because friends of his are involved rather than from conscience or love of the rule of law, but nevertheless he thwarts both con artists.
In the process he even seems to miss out on an evening where Lady Jane was giving signals that she might actually be about to succumb to his advances!
It's an entertaining episode, in the same way Hustle is entertaining, because we can see what is going on. It's also a clean sweep of victories for Lovejoy.