For a bicycle geek, I received a very thoughtful gift for Christmas from a dear friend, a DVD of Vittorio di Sica’s 1948 film The Bicycle Thieves.

Like all 21st century Oxford residents, I am acutely aware of bicycle theft. If I’m out for the night I take two locks and I never leave my beloved bikes anywhere overnight, except a locked garage or even the house.

This tends to ruin the sitting room, but I have lived for years with top-end bicycles and more than one cyclist in the house, so three bikes behind the sofa is not an uncommon occurrence for me. But after watching the wonderful film I realised it would never have been made if the writer of the original novel, Luigi Bartolini, had been unaware of the ultimate crime to a bike lover.

I don’t need to ram statistics down your throat to highlight the problem as we all know somebody who has been the victim of a bicycle thief or even experienced it ourselves.

Indeed, It seems the problem is only getting worse, especially in Jericho where the bicycle thief has now evolved into a hardened accessory or component dealer, much to everyone’s annoyance.

To understand the petty criminals behind the statistics I googled bicycle thieves in an attempt to comprehend their psyche. Page one results included a band by the same name and a restaurant called The Bicycle Thief in Nova Scotia, due to open this month.

The best website I stumbled upon on page two was a global campaign of ill will against the thieves. Complete with a downloadable poster to post in your own town which reads: “My bike was stolen from my front lawn last week, no reward is given for its return, I don’t even want this bike back. I just made these flyers to tell you, Bike Thief, I hope you ride my bike without a helmet and get hit by a monster truck. I hope my bike takes you straight to hell.”

True poetry in motion if ever I heard it and you can even buy the T-shirt if you want a mobile poster as well.

But one man truly epitomises – albeit in an extreme and illegal fashion – the concept of getting your own back against the bike thief. He took the time, trouble and money to install a pay-as-you-go mobile phone into a water bottle which detonates a stun gun on demand (I kid you not).

I am no closer to understanding the bicycle thief after my research, but I now understand the inspiration that has formed from our loathing of them.

It would be nice to eradicate them from our lives but all we can do for the meantime is make their jobs a little bit harder.

So on that note, I’m off to write my poems, plays and novels all inspired by those damned bicycle thieves.