Money-saving "Tips"

DON'T waste money on expensive iPods. Simply think of your favourite tune and hum it. If you want to "switch tracks", simply think of another song you like and hum that instead.

DON'T waste money on expensive paper shredders to avoid having your identity stolen. Simply place a few dog turds in the bin bags along with your old bank statements.

HOMEOWNERS: Prevent burglars stealing everything in the house by simply moving everything in the house into your bedroom when you go to bed. In the morning, simply move it all back again.

SAVE money on expensive personalised car number plates by simply changing your name to match your existing plate. - Mr. KVL 741Y.

DON'T waste money buying expensive binoculars; simply stand closer to the object you wish to view.

AN empty aluminium cigar tube filled with angry wasps makes an inexpensive vibrator.

SAVE electricity by turning off all the lights in your house and walking around wearing a miner's hat.

HOUSEWIVES, the best way to get two bottles of washing-up liquid for the price of one is by putting one in your shopping trolley and the other in your coat pocket.

OLD telephone directories make ideal personal address books, simply cross out the names and address of people you don't know.

SAVE on booze by drinking cold tea instead of whisky. The following morning you can create the effects of a hangover by drinking a thimble full of washing up liquid and banging your head repeatedly on the wall.

SAVE a fortune on laundry bills. Give your dirty shirts to Oxfam, they will wash and iron them and you can buy them back for fifty pence.

OLD people, if you feel cold indoors this winter, simply pop outside for ten minutes without a coat, when you go back inside you will really feel the benefit.

CAN'T afford contact lenses? Simply cut out small circles of cling film and press them into your eyes.

WHY pay the earth for expensive jigsaws? Just take a bag of frozen chips from the freezer and try piecing together potatoes.

MIX tea with coffee, and leave in the fridge to cool. Hey presto! Toffee.

MAKE your own inexpensive mints by leaving blobs of toothpaste to dry on a window sill. Use striped toothpaste to make humbugs.

SHOPPERS, when buying oranges, get more for your money by peeling them before taking them to the counter to be weighed.

WOMEN: Don't waste energy faking orgasms. Most men couldn't care less anyway and you could use the saved energy to Hoover the house afterwards.

In Defence of P G Wodehouse by George Orwell

This essay was written in 1945. In it Orwell defends P G Wodehouse from the vilification which was heaped on him after he, as a German captive, made broadcasts on the radio in Berlin. Orwell makes his case well for Wodehouse as a political innocent and unwitting tool of the Nazis.

However the most interesting paragraph for me is the end one. Part of it states that, "Few things in this war have been more morally disgusting than the present hunt after traitors and Quislings. At best it is largely the punishment of the guilty by the guilty. In France, all kinds of petty rats -- police officials, penny-a-lining journalists, women who have slept with German soldiers -- are hunted down while almost without exception the big rats escape. In England the fiercest tirades against Quislings are uttered by Conservatives who were practising appeasement in 1938 and Communists who were advocating it in 1940".

In effect it would seem that punishment is often heaped upon those whom it is easier to punish. I think this has relevance to today's culture of political correctness. Perhaps I should say, of excess political correctness, because of course it is right that offensive language should not be used and that people should not be discriminated against. However when you get cases like children being removed by the social services from caring parents of low IQ, while in other cases those known to be guilty of abuse or neglect are allowed or even encouraged to keep their children, it makes you wonder if discrimination is being practised here in the very name of political correctness. Or you get the case of a woman being fined for putting the wrong rubbish in her bin, while as Orwell says above, "the big rats escape". Some bankers have caused havoc, for example, yet seem to be rewarded by bonuses.

What do you think?