It's " the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness" ( that's Shelley to non poetic blog readers ) ! And Charlbury is looking magnificent as you can see from the photos taken on my walk across to my favourite pub, The Plough in Finstock.
It's my birthday tomorrow; you can tell I'm a Guy Fawkes lad can't you ! So it's a long weekend and lunch in Kingham in the pub once graced ( disgraced perhaps more accurate) by the Chipping Norton set. I've had lots of these and not saying what my glorious age now is but I'm clearly still as youthful as ever.
The only bad spot of the day was when I went into the Charlbury Co-op. There, slap bang near the entrance was a brazen Health Lottery stand. Prominent. Unlike the minimally advertised National Lottery. An angry letter is off to the Mid Counties co - op CEO to demand change! Remember. The health Lottery gives only 20p to charity. NL gives 28p. So if the health lottery takes custom away , charities will lose out. That is not on.
2 comments:
Had I known it was your birthday Stephen I'd have sent you a book of KEATS' poems!
All state or quasi-state lotteries are brought in to gather money in from the public as an alternative to progressive direct taxation. We all know who plays the National Lottery - it is not the wealthy residents of Belgravia, Mayfair, St.John's Wood, Chelsea etc, it is the poor who can never be rich by their own efforts and can only dream. The condescending mush about good causes being helped, whether it is 28% or 20% of the gross take, is irrelevant when you look at the slice of the action that Camelot or any other operator takes, and the retailers, and the slice that goes from these poor to HMRC. OK, nobody needs to buy a lottery ticket, but that's true of buying items carrying VAT also.
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