Money for nothing, get your tits for free

Sorry about the rather vulgar title – but my subject is a rather money-grabbing sordid one. Yesterday BBC Breakfast did a piece on the poor unfortunate ladies that now need to have their breast implants replaced, and who want you and me (if you happen to be a tax payer) to “support” them….ahem. Now the BBC is very good at picking our poor misfortunates — but this time it excelled itself. The woman featured — barely more than 24 (but, you never know, she may have had some work done) was claiming the right for free surgery and replacements. Her rationale was she needed new boobs because the other ones had gone all misshapen through ‘years of breast-feeding’. She spoke these words through coral glossed lips, in figure hugging clothes, suggesting a size-8 figure, but with fully extended and perky breasts…Her two small children, both surely under five, looked adorable in her spotless kitchen. She could have been in a Magnet commercial. But no, she just wanted to draw money out of the public purse. I’d laugh, but I’m worried about the wrinkles and whether her case will, or will not, allow me to get a face lift on the NHS!

I suggest, if she is not entirely successful in her campaign for pneumatic boobs for so long as she lives, that she sets up a little jar in her bedroom. Any lucky people that manage to “get close” to this dear lady, should be encouraged to make a donation for “wear and tear”, to ensure her sustainable sexual allure…

—-Talking of not wishing to laugh, I could have cried when I read in The Times this morning that the comedian Jimmy Carr is managing to get away with paying around 1% in tax, through using tax avoidance schemes! It stings even more when I think I recently paid a hefty sum to the Inland Revenue — and had to jump through hoops to actually pay it. The tax was on the sale of a company — a sum which a junior banker would find derisory if paid as a bonus — but, all the same, qualified for a wedge of corporate tax. Having been alerted to the payment by my accountant when I was in Brussels — and having failed to pay it there (I didn’t have the necessary ID with me, as I was queried by the call centre assistant in the loo of a conference centre) — I made a point of calling the bank on my return the next day. Eventually, having gone through all the procedures, the Irish lady on the other end of the phone said the money could finally be sent to IR by CHAPS. I sighed and said, “I never thought I’d have so much trouble paying something I really didn’t want (or could really afford) to pay. I could hear her smiling at the other end of the phone in Dublin: “Why don’t you just squirrel it away,” she advised! Now that made me laugh more than any Jimmy Carr joke. So I pressed send. My bank balance will be poorer — but my soul? And. at least, the law won’t be able to squirrel me away in prison for tax avoidance…