The fact Loftus-Cheek has had brilliant 10 minute spells in games before going missing is the perfect reason he should be used as impact and not starting. Discussion Cairney genuinely was entering the form of his life too, hopefully he gets the nod tomorrow.

Pigeon drop (also known as Spanish Handkerchief) is a confidence trick in which a mark or 'pigeon' is persuaded to give up a sum of money in order to secure the rights to a larger sum of money, or more valuable object.^{[1][2][3][page needed]}

To perform a pigeon drop, two con artists pose as strangers to each other and manipulate a mark into seemingly finding a large amount of 'lost' money. The two con artists convince the mark that they can all legitimately claim equal shares of the found money if they each put up some amount of their own money to prove good faith; the mark, unaware that the two others are confederates, believes that they have independently judged this to be a wise course of action. The con artists take possession of the mark's money and hand over what the mark believes to be his share of the found money, or even the entirety of the find if he believes he has been made its trustee. In actuality, the con artists use sleight of hand to give the mark a worthless decoy, such as an envelope full of newspaper scraps. The con artists can then easily leave in the guise of fulfilling some part of the agreed-upon process, such as depositing the funds or filling out legal paperwork, and will be long gone by the time the mark detects the deception.^[4][5]

In popular culture[edit]

In the opening scene of the 1973 film The Sting, Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford) and Luther Coleman (Robert Earl Jones) pull a pigeon drop on a numbers runner for Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw), resulting in the murder of Coleman. This provides the motive for Hooker to seek out Henry Gondorff (Paul Newman) to run the titular sting on Lonnegan.

In The Golden Girls, season 5 episode 'Cheaters,' Blanche and Sophia are victims of a pigeon drop at the local mall.

In The Rockford Files, season 2, episode 2 'The Farnsworth Strategem,' Audrey Wyatt (played by Linda Evans) states she had only met Simon Lloyd 'last year. He was working a bad variation of the pigeon drop scam and I cleaned it up.'

In John D. MacDonald's book, Pale Gray for Guilt, Travis McGee, with the help of his sidekick Meyer, takes $60,000 from a mark using the pigeon drop scheme.

References[edit]

1. ^Swierczynski, Duane (2003). The complete idiot's guide to frauds, scams, and cons. Alpha Books. p. 28. ISBN978-0-02-864415-8.
2. ^Paul J. Zak (November 13, 2008). 'How to Run a Con'. Psychology Today. Retrieved November 14, 2013.
3. ^Arrington, Rick (2006). Crime prevention: the law enforcement officer's practical guide. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.^{[ISBN missing]}
4. ^'Wisconsin woman loses $2,000 after being 'completely fooled' by wallet scam'. Fox News. September 5, 2017. Retrieved April 11, 2020.
5. ^Bird, Allyson (June 4, 2012). 'Police warn of 'found money' scam'. Post and Courier. Retrieved April 11, 2020.

External links[edit]

Here’s a simple math game you can use as a book-tivity with any of the Pigeon books by Mo Willems. The newest Pigeon book was released today, April 1st! The new book is called The Pigeon Needs a Bath!(this is an Amazon affiliate link).

To play this game you will need some small cubes, such as linking cubes, or a similar manipulative. You could also use lima beans. You will need to print out the Pigeon, which you can find on coloring sheets available at PigeonPresents.com. (I am not able to provide a printable for this due to copyright.) Coloring sheets can be found in the Teachers’ Guides on the Grown Up Stuff section of Pigeon Presents. “The Duckling Gets a Cookie Event Kit” and “The Pigeon Wants a Puppy Event Kit” both have Pigeon coloring pages.

Color and cut around the pigeon’s outline and laminate if you choose. Give each child about 10 cubes. The cubes will need to fit in their hand(s), so use something that isn’t too large.

To play the game, children will drop a handful of cubes onto the Pigeon. They will count how many cubes landed on the Pigeon and how many cubes are off. (If it lands on the white part of the paper, but off the pigeon, we still consider it “on”.) You could have them compare to see which has the most cubes: on or off. You could also have children record their answers by writing the numeral on a dry erase board or paper. Children who are not yet able to write the numbers could stamp them if you have a set of number stamps.

Pigeon Brain Size

This game could be adapted to work with any storybook character or any theme by using a different clipart image.

Pigeon Drop Scheme

Pigeon Drop Game