Parisians are officially the most humourous criminals non?

Word is, the hunt is on in Paris for armed robbers - SOME DRESSED IN DRAG – who relieved Harry Winston jewellers of some €80 million-worth of diamonds, precious stones and other sparkly goodness. That makes it the biggest jewellery-heist-carried-out-by-gender-ambiguous-criminals France has ever seen. They good as emptied the shop.

So there are wanted men, in drag, with guns, covered in an appalling amount of bling, in Paris - capital of elegance and style. They will surely be banged up before tea time won’t they?

It reminded me of that story about the illegal restoration of an antique clock housed in the Panthéon. Remember that?

I went and found the website of the group responsible - ‘The Untergunther’. They proclaim themselves to be “a clandestine group with a mission to restore the neglected heritage in Paris”. Fabulous. It makes me really badly want to be a member of a clandestine group. Perhaps our mission could be to hold guerrilla roller discos across the UK or something.

Anyway. Basically, these Untergunther geniuses, in a time-honoured fashion, got themselves locked into the Panthéon one night and set about sorting out a secret workshop in the Panthéon’s dome (furnished, and with views over Paris, naturally).

They spent a year piecing apart and repairing a clock that had been sat rusting since the 1960s. When finished they decided to tell the folks at the Panthéon, primarily so they would know to wind the clock up.

So the officials took legal action and tried to have the cultural crims prosecuted. But of course all stories that involve getting locked in museums overnight have happy endings and the judge ruled in favour of the Untergunther.

Their website is here, some really amazing photos of the clock, the workshop and the hugely desirable seating is here. Get some Wiki action with more details of the sorts of thrilling things the French get up to underground here.

Probably those gun-totting diamond thieves in dresses don’t have a website. Maybe they’re on facebook though.