I’m a very ethical shopper. I only buy clothes made by unemployed, replenishable, single-parent transexuals paid a decent wage by a UK-based, tax-declaring company in a wonderful, bright, cheery environment with massages provided every hour to relieve any strain the workers may incur.

My socks alone cost £97.50 a pair. I’m saving up for a shirt. Maybe next year. With a mortgage.

Meanwhile Primark, the low-cost fashion outlets, declared sales up 22% and turnover now 4.6 billion. Primark. Who manufacture in sweatshops in Bangladesh, paying non-living wages to impoverished paupers in such unbelievably sordid conditions that one of their factories burned down last year and everyone died because there was no fire escapes and the cost of a fire extinguisher (£22.74) would have increased the market price of a t-shirt by 0.000000000000000003p. Unacceptable. They employ children, beat them with big sticks, abuse the women, keep them locked up for 19 hours a day and force them to watch x-factor re-runs.

So essentially, we all have a firm set of ethical beliefs and considerations we use, particularly at dinner parties in Hampstead. And we’re evangelical in our hatred of abusive practices and the companies who perpetrate them. But the next day the kids need loads of new clothes so off we trot to fucking Primark.

Ethics are just too expensive to put into practice.

Is diving to get a penalty for your football team ‘ethical’? Ashley Young, a famous swan impersonator, last night did that very thing. Again. No-one touched him but down he went as if his legs had been removed simultaneously below the knee by a chain-saw.

So a big debate today about the whole diving issue. How refs can’t see everything, how touches can have a big effect on a fast moving person, blah, blah, blah.

The upshot is really quite simple when it comes to whether a ‘simulated’ plummet to the ground is ‘acceptable’. If its done by one of your players its fine, when done by anyone else, he’s a fucking cheating scummy diving immoral bastard.

Simple. And elegant. Almost. Bit like me.

 

Happy wednesday

 

A xxxx