Getting away with it is all in the art of entitlement

For sheer audacity, you’d have to hand it to those boyos who made it into the Louvre this week and headed off with Napoleon’s crown jewels. It’s tragic of course that these irreplaceable pieces of history are currently being reconstituted through a smelter – but the brazenness of their daylight robbery still beats Banagher.

The secret wasn’t the special ladder or the planning; it was simply down to the absolute truth that nobody will ever stand in your way if you really look like you’re supposed to be there.

These guys looked the part, dressed like window cleaners or workmen in their hi-vis tops. And that’s why nobody passed a blind bit of notice of them until, job done, they headed off on their scooters, dropping priceless heirlooms in the process.

It’s the same attitude that used to get some of us into nightclubs back in the day – and saw many others refused at the point of entry.

Because if you approached the doormen as though you were looking for a favour, you were never going to make it.

But if you swaggered, not staggered, up to the door and looked like you were to the manor born, you stood a better chance of being whisked right through to decide whether you wanted the chicken curry or the ham salad as your ‘substantial meal’ before you trotted onto the dancefloor.

The problem is you cannot put old heads on young shoulders, although you’d love to offer a couple of pieces of advice to those queuing to get into a bar on those nights when you yourself are now walking home.

The first advice, actually, would be not to queue at all, because it’s not like there is only one bar in Galway, but even if that was the case, you have to realise that – if there’s a big queue outside – it must mean that they’re wedged in like sardines on the other side of the door.

So even if you made it in, you won’t be able to get a drink. And if you do, you won’t be able to get your hand up to your mouth to drink it – or if you managed that, you won’t be able to get your arm back down again.

But presuming they still want to be part of the crowd, you’d tell them that it’s all about attitude.

If you look like you belong in there, you’re in – and if you look like you don’t, you’re on your way to an ignominious exit.