"It's a real shame that those things don't come with some sort of money-back guarantee, isn't it?" I ventured to the elderly gentleman. His skin had assumed the cankerous hue of a well-weathered, desiccated leaf; all the more reason to remain fully-shirted one might have assumed. Alas the curse of that rare phenomenon, British sunshine!
The gentleman in question was animatedly assuring me that there had been a time, presumably dim and distant, when the tattoo in question had borne a remarkable and almost lifelike resemblance to an actual Blue-collared Lizard. And so, not wishing to deflate the chap further, I dutifully concurred. My own summation, that the poorly 'crafted' 'ink-stain' had assumed the approximation of some kind of disfiguring burn, was definitely not a thought best shared at this juncture.
Several ales and an undeniable lifetime of limited ambition had seriously depleted the chap's vocabulary whilst, ever-ironically, whetting his appetite for meaningless 'conversation'. I tucked my book away into my rucksack and wrestled my assumed facial expression into one of relative compliance, snatching a further surreptitious glance at the bus timetable.
"Shame about England, isn't it?" he threw into the mix, from somewhere way out of left field. Where to start, I considered.
Shame about England...
The words seemed almost to echo inside my head. Naturally, we'd both been somewhat distracted by the mother and child, also waiting, but demonstrably less patiently, at the same bus stop. I'd hoped, desperately, that their's would transpire to be a different wait. Junior had mastered the oft-witnessed 'skill' of aggressive egocentricity, which the mother seemed misguidedly eager to overindulge. She'd even splashed out on some of those sagging, homage to prison life, jeans. I wiped away a tear of 'genuine' respect for the 'forward-thinking' clothes manufacturer concerned. 'So, they 'design' them for children as young as five, do they,' I thought. I could definitely relate to the old man's comment.
Shame about England...
Or perhaps, I considered, he was alluding to the recently estimated 100,000 multi-millionaires who have been evading income tax, via this newly-unearthed K2 scheme. But it's okay, because apparently they're actually 'avoiding', not 'evading', which would be just plain wrong. Hats off to Gary Barlow, I say; surely he deserves some sort of kick-back after proudly organising all of those queenie birthday celebrations. Or alternatively, it really was a 'shame about England,' I found myself edging, ever more, towards unanimity.
Regarding the point of tax evasion, our 'highly representative' government would, I feel most certain, be rabidly over-eager to point out that Britain's growing status as a genuine tax haven for the mega-wealthy is a 'necessary' tweak, concerned with incentivising all of those amorphous 'investors'. Apparently, all we now need to do is to sweep away all of that backed-up regulation and red tape that's stalling our recovery- 'trivia' like minimum housing requirements, protection for sites of special scientific interest, disability rights, all of that sort of 'unnecessary' stuff- and the road to recovery will be laid clear. A few long overdue instances of deregulation are just itching to bribe their way through parliament, and on to the open market. Heads down, everybody else!
Shame about England...
Or, just maybe, the chappy was expressing his disappointment at the aforementioned queen's begging letter to 'our' government, for access to 'her own' pensioner's winter fuel allowance. The 'poor' old dear, must be absolutely freezing, rattling about in all of those massive, oh-so-expensive-to-heat-properly, palaces. England; indeed it is a bit of a shame, isn't it, I nodded in silent acknowledgement.
Shame about England...
An honest appraisal? The old guy didn't present as the sort of person who's ears might prick up at such a rumour but, then again, first impressions can often be wildly deceptive. I'm assuming, for example, that even Bob Diamond must have thoroughly impressed someone, at some point, somewhere along the line. Maybe, just maybe, I thought, the elderly gentleman, like myself, had caught wind of the whispered rumour that...
Pens out and eyes to the front, this is a numbers thing. It's not unduly complex but the figures are, should they concur to be true, absolutely staggering! So, here we go; apparently, during the last financial year, the country's thousand richest individuals have increased their relative wealth by (here it is) £30,000,000,000 more than the entire national debt. That's, "more than the entire national debt!" That means that, if true, those thousand individuals could repay all of the national debt, without recourse to bothering the rest of the nation, and still have enough left over to squirrel away £30,000,000 each. And this would be on top of their usual, already disgustingly large 'usual' annual takings.
Shame about England... The echoes were definitely becoming more pronounced.
Of course, when we talk about the national debt, we seldom seem to allude to the flip-side of the same coin, do we? To whom might this debt be owed?
Well, this is just a guess but might not at least some of that massive increase in income, that I've just alluded to, be, in some tiny way, connected to the massive debt that is never far from the news headlines? It's just a thought.
And, yes, I realise that it's just a rumour. But it's a big, big numbers rumour, that's leaked out of somewhere, in a country where, essentially, nearly all the means of large scale communication are in 'questionable' hands, so it's unlikely to have the full broadcasting support of, for example, The Financial Times, News Corporation, ITV, any bank, the BBC, almost any politicians, any of the tabloids, or most other larger corporations.
My gut is telling me to go with it. There is no doubt that, if such a rumour reached the wider audience, there would be all manner of denial, and financial counter-expertise at the ready, and all of those 'alternative figures' to conjure with, but, even if it did turn out to be an exaggeration, I bet that's all it would be, an exaggeration. There's no smoke without fire, as they say. Shame about England...
Nodding solemnly, I was teetering upon the very verge of absolute concurrence.
"Bloody penalties again!" he slurred with something akin to passion. Another can of high strength lager had somehow materialised, perhaps from within that sagging mass that might have, in another life, passed as some sort of trouser.
Absolutely, I thought, get behind 'our' boys, 'our' tax evading, self-serving, product-placement mannequins, in their focused task of becoming ever more a symbol of the inequality that is Britain today. "Indeed," I muttered, "Shame about England!"
I declined a swig from the proffered can.
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