In 2006 two lovely little kids, Christi and Bobby Shepherd, died in a tragic accident in Corfu. The boiler in their holiday apartment was built to such exacting Greek standards that they died of carbon monoxide poisoning. A tragedy. Which resulted in compensation being awarded to the parents of £320,000 each. I have no idea how such a thing is calculated because its such a horrendous situation that the money is not really significant.

And yet it is. Just as a yardstick. Just as a guide of relative importance. You can’t quantify ‘tragedy’ or ‘life-ruining horror’, but you can look at the numbers.

Thomas Cook, the travel agency, received £3.5 million for ‘damages’ for the same event from the hotel chain involved. Ten times what each parent received for the loss of their children.

A really big deal has been made about this, mainly in the red-top press, comparing the two payouts. But really they’re totally different things. Thomas Cook’s losses can be added up by bean counters. There’s the loss of bookings, the PR disaster and the cost of countering it, there’s cancellations, breaches of contract, failure of standards, blah, blah, blah, that’s three and a half mil, per-lease.

And its not enough. Because Thomas Cook’s shares have plummeted, their credibility shot to shit and 9 years later, they’ve just brought their mighty corporate selves to actually offer a kind of apology to the parents. Kind of.

Yet Thomas Cook’s losses are real. And, charitable gestures aside, the 3.5 million quid may prove much more harmful than good.

So the parents get 320 grand for the loss of a child. The single most awful thing that can ever happen to anyone, ever.

Yet an Eastenders star gets 200,000 from the Daily Mirror for having their phone hacked. Some worthless wanker (a lot like Piers Morgan, the then editor, still in denial) was listening to dinner cancellations and ‘giyus a call back when you gerra chance; laters’ and that’s worth hundreds of thousands of pounds in compensation.

Now that doesn’t add up.

And whilst we’re on ridiculous payments, I feel tis time to mention Raheem Sterling. Soon to be ex-Liverpool superstar. His agent famously turned down £100,000 a week for the 20 year old winger for a new contract as risible.

Ok, we had ‘Rooneygate’ when ugly Wayne threatened to go to Manchester City just so his own club, Manchester United, would increase their offer significantly. And we’ve had countless other demonstrations of the dark arts by Lord Voldemort’s representatives in the Muggle World, football agents. But this time its gone really nasty.

Raheem’s agent, the worthless, parasitical Aidy Ward, has claimed that his client wouldn’t stay at Liverpool for 900,000 a week!!! Just as well, cos he ain’t gonna get it. Furthermore he called Jamie Carragher, ex-Liverpool star turned unintelligible pundit, ‘a knob!!!’ for his criticism of Sterling and Ward’s behaviour. Well, he may be a knob, but he’s not wrong.

I think balance needs to be redressed in the world of compensation and payments. Christi and Bobby’s parents should get 100,000 a week and Raheem Sterling and his obnoxious agent should be poisoned with carbon monoxide. And Piers Morgan. Just because.

Happy Friday

A xxxx