Lucian Miers wins the Master Investor DVD for answering the competition
correctly: North Devon 1979, Auberon Waugh and Rinka. I am not sure that Waugh was a terribly nice man but generally you do not stick the boot in just after someone dies. Rather famously, the loathsome Polly Toynbee did just that with a vile obit in 2001
My youngest sister, Naomi, ( named after a gorilla at Chester zoo) holds the view that if Uncle Chris (Christopher Booker) is opposed to something then by definition it is a cause worth supporting. Thus as someone who has worked her entire life in the public sector, reading the Guardian, she loves the EU, wind farms, regulation and thinks that global warming is a real threat. It is only on the issue of the Middle East where she and Chris find themselves in agreement and where my views diverge sharply from those of my Uncle. It is odd how so many from the traditional right as well as almost all of the new left both find joint cause these days in their loathing of Israel.
I apply Naomi’s Booker rule to Toynbee. Almost every word the vile old hag pens for the Guardian makes my blood boil. Only someone like her, born into privilege and earning vast sums in the state subsidized sector, totally immune to market forces can argue that we should “all pay a bit more” in tax. She can afford it. It might just mean one less trip a year to her Tuscan second home. Most of us cannot. If Toynbee supports a cause it is bound to be a misguided one worth opposing on principle.
And finally to something Toynbee no doubt has no interest in: cheap beer, football and patriotism. She would undoubtedly argue that such matters were just for the masses and are all beneath her. For the rest of us Euro 2012 kicks off tomorrow. All the games (Monday to Saturday only) will be shown at Real Man Pizza 91-95 Clerkenwell Road and while the games are on, the price of a Peroni or glass of wine is slashed to just £1.25. Cheers.