There are some weeks when even I, befuddled readers, struggle to find the words to bring a little ribald humour into your meaningless and humdrum lives.
And the source of my malaise is not the loss of the nation's last British institution (pace all the nationalised banks and death machine makers), or the weather, VAT, duty fraud, red tape or ombudsmen.
Yes, we have our crosses to bear. But frankly, we are the most atrocious bunch of whingers. And the pictures from Haiti have put all the travails and torments of the beloved food and grocery industries into stark perspective. Luckily, we have corporate charity donations to assuage the collective conscience. I can't tell you how much this tugs at the heartstrings. No sooner had we seen the first, awful, pictures from Haiti when we witnessed the first, awful public giving of alms.
Tesco was first out, covering its back with a £50k donation. Very nice, Tel, that's 26 seconds' worth of takings on last year's £60bn. Luckily we have Bondandybond's paymasters to compare - the utterly awful Walmart's corporate conscience coughed up $500k. A tidy sum indeed, until the Pumserian abacus reveals it to be 39 seconds' worth of last year's $400bn sales of doughnuts, gassy rice beer and Kraft 'cheese'.
Now, you'll rightly observe that at least it's a little bit of moolah that will go to doing some good, rather than lining the shareholders' pockets. And we've yet to hear anything from King Justin or even, well, whoever it is that's running Morrisons these days. But when the salaries of corporate social responsibility experts are greater than the actual donations, it sticks in the throat.
As to Cadbury - by its own modest confession a company that would probably have been beatified by now had the Pope not been busy vetting the entire Irish priesthood, getting dissed by the Israeli rabbinical elite and engaging in fisticuffs with his parishioners - at least we'll be spared that bloody gorilla.
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And the source of my malaise is not the loss of the nation's last British institution (pace all the nationalised banks and death machine makers), or the weather, VAT, duty fraud, red tape or ombudsmen.
Yes, we have our crosses to bear. But frankly, we are the most atrocious bunch of whingers. And the pictures from Haiti have put all the travails and torments of the beloved food and grocery industries into stark perspective. Luckily, we have corporate charity donations to assuage the collective conscience. I can't tell you how much this tugs at the heartstrings. No sooner had we seen the first, awful, pictures from Haiti when we witnessed the first, awful public giving of alms.
Tesco was first out, covering its back with a £50k donation. Very nice, Tel, that's 26 seconds' worth of takings on last year's £60bn. Luckily we have Bondandybond's paymasters to compare - the utterly awful Walmart's corporate conscience coughed up $500k. A tidy sum indeed, until the Pumserian abacus reveals it to be 39 seconds' worth of last year's $400bn sales of doughnuts, gassy rice beer and Kraft 'cheese'.
Now, you'll rightly observe that at least it's a little bit of moolah that will go to doing some good, rather than lining the shareholders' pockets. And we've yet to hear anything from King Justin or even, well, whoever it is that's running Morrisons these days. But when the salaries of corporate social responsibility experts are greater than the actual donations, it sticks in the throat.
As to Cadbury - by its own modest confession a company that would probably have been beatified by now had the Pope not been busy vetting the entire Irish priesthood, getting dissed by the Israeli rabbinical elite and engaging in fisticuffs with his parishioners - at least we'll be spared that bloody gorilla.
More from this column
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