Gambling and the House of Knaves!

THE FRIDAY THING _ LIFE AND OTHER BITS: DO you ever think you’re missing out? Silly question really; of course you are, we all are, not least because bankers and MPs are spending more of our money than we are. And they get rewarded for it.

Having gambled away not only the family silver but the kids and the cat and dog as well in a jolly little now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t, sleight-of-hand, three-card trick game they couldn’t lose because they didn’t put their money on the table, they are not, as you might think, going to jail without collecting £200 and passing go but collecting rewards more than most of us will earn in a lifetime.

There is a catch for the poor little dears of course. No, they are not having a hand chopped off or be given community service and having to wear one of those badly tailored orange vests, but they have to wait three to five years before they can cash in their million poundsworth of shares. By that time, of course, they could well be worth five million.

If you’re a banker, you win some, then you win some more. Losing is not in the bankers’ lexicon. Next year the country will borrow £178 billion to help to fill the hole created by the wheeler and dealers’ game of no- limit three-card brag. And who will pay that back? You and me, Mr and Mrs Muggins.

As for the house of knaves they call Parliament, there are more revelations today about repairs to bell towers (First Choice Homes standard issue, of course) and more fiddles than the London Ensemble String Orchestra when it comes to second- home mortgages, swimming pools, gardening, a garlic peeler and chocolate bars.

Doesn’t all this enterprise — especially with other people’s (yours and mine) money — make you proud to be British?




I THINK it is very considerate of the authorities to change the law so that motorists who are driving and texting or phoning at the same time don’t have to signal.

After all is it anyone else’s business whether they are turning right or left? They know where they are going and the person they are talking to or texting knows where they are going, too, so what’s it got to do with you, waiting to cross the road and having to gamble on whether or not it is safe, or the drivers behind and in front of them who have a passing or not passing interest? Nothing.




FINAL WORD: Were you surprised to discover that the people of the borough don’t think much of Oldham Council? It was as surprising as the fact that Christmas Day is on December 25 this year.