Some time ago.
Dad worked on the top floor of a four-storey telephone exchange. There were no lifts (elevators), but the exercise he got from climbing the stairs every morning was still preferable to the drenching he'd regularly received while fixing junction boxes in the streets of Edinburgh.
Be that as it may.
One day, a uniformed police officer turned up by his desk, puffing and wheezing.
"Good day, my good man," or words to that effect, said the filth. "Would that be your car parked on the pavement downstairs, only it's causing an obstruction?"
"Would that be the silver Bentley?" asked Dad innocuously. Dad never drove in his life.
"Ah, no sir," replied the pig. "It's a blue Ford Escort. Sorry to have disturbed you."
And off he went.
Five minutes later, with much pounding on the stairs, the rozzer was back, gasping for breath this time. "Sir! Sir! There's no silver Bentley down there!"
"Oh, my God, it's been stolen!" Sharp as a pin, was Dad.
So then he made poor PC Plod go back down again, have another look to make sure, come back up and prepare to take a statement before declaring, "Ah, wait, the wife said she would be taking it today to fetch the shopping."
He would have loved Robin Cooper.