Not just flowers. Spot the difference

Illustration by Lars Wannop (Fabrica)

When I was a child (many and many years ago!) I had a bad habit… sometimes I used to steal toys from the shop next to my house.
(When they caught me I’ve been feeling ashamed for 10 years, until I moved).
I had a precise strategy: the more I steal in broad daylight, the less the owner of the shop got suspicious.
In other terms: if you are totally exposed, none will think you are doing something wrong.
So I used to be a baby-thief in daylight.
That’s what some poppies planters must have thought.

Sienian citizens thought that some poppies in the historic centre of their Italian city looked too peculiar, and decided to warn the police.
Policemen told those flowers were opium poppies, ready to be farmed.
Probably planters were trying to deceive people thanks to the similarity with ordinary poppies and tossed the seeds into the grass.
I don’t know what you think about it, but I dont think I would be able to distinguish opium poppies from ordinary ones.
That may mean that Sienian citizens already knew how opium poppies looked like.
He who excuses himself, accuses himself.
Maybe the owner of the toy shop was a thief as well as me!

Filed Under Environment, Media & Society, Modern Life