Burglar Alarm Britain

“Viscount Alarms” burglar alarm, St Albans • Of Norman origin, like all Britain’s aristocratic titles, a viscount is a middle-ranking sort of peer, below an earl but above a baron. Resplendent in a coronet bearing 16 balls (see below), such a personage should be addressed as “Lord”, if you’re feling deferential. The more egalitarian Anglo-Saxon equivalent was the “shire reeve” or sheriff, which would be a good title for a burglar alarm in my opinion. But I have never come across any Sheriff Alarms, perhaps because of the word’s unfortunate cowboy connotations. According to the comments below this Xtal alarm, Viscount were a well-run business who used to do the alarms for Shell petrol stations and Robert Dyas, but were brought to an untimely end by the failure of their parent company. • Spotted: Town centre, St Albans, Hertfordshire, AL1, England, 2010 • Politics: In the Conservative constituency of St Albans

A viscount’s coronet with its 16 non-egalitarian balls