A higher force at work

The sun is shining. The last few days of summer I suppose. It’s the worst time of year for me. I hate to see the laves falling off trees. There are conkers on the ground now, and we picked up a chestnut at the weekend. The dragon wants to grow a chestnut tree.

I see in the news that a woman from East Sussex has been found guilty in court of benefit fraud and fined £1,315. She was caught after an ex-boyfriend informed the authorities that she was receiving benefits while also being paid by an adult television channel to host shows. Here’s the thing; she illegally claimed £7,782 in benefits while working for the tv channel. She apparently earned £350 a night presenting adult shows, earning a total of £18,000 between March and October 2010. It’s not made clear in the report, but let’s assume that the £7,782 in fraudulent benefit claims was over the same period. That’s a total income of £25,782 over eight months. If we subtract the fine she was given (£1,315) that leaves a profit of £24,467, and almost £8,000 of that was not taxed since it was a benefit payment. Outside court, the mother-of-two said she was “mortified” by her actions. I bet she was mortified all the way to the bank!

The Roald Dahl Museum is claiming it needs £500,000 to move and preserve the little hut in Dahl’s garden where he used to work, to the museum down the road. Half a million quid?! You could build a replica for about £5,000 and I’ll move the crap inside for £50! Seriously, even if you actually go to the trouble of taking down and rebuilding the thing piece by piece, it really shouldn’t cost more than £10,000. It’s a shed! Oh yes, and they want to raise a further £500,000 to create an interactive environment in which to place the hut.

Finally, here’s a story to warm your heart. Disgraced former Toys Are Us Director, Paul Hopes, stole £3.7 million from the company and apparently squandered a great deal of it on prostitutes. One prostitute, Dawn Dunbar was reportedly paid £20,000 a week for her services and has now found herself in court trying to justify her prices. The judge seemingly thought her charges were excessive and demanded in court that she explain them. My immediate thought there was, “how does he know the going rate?”

It would appear that Hopes, who is now in jail, is being pursued by prosecutors attempting to recover the money he stole from Toys Are Us. The judge ruled that the money given to Dawn Dunbar by Hopes was not earned and could therefore be confiscated. I’m not sure how he came to that conclusion. The inference would seem to be that she could not justify her charges for sexual services and therefore money given to her must have been a gift. Does that sound like bullshit to anyone else? I would suggest that it exempts her from any charges of prostitution! In any case, she appears to have spent huge amounts of money on elite cars and houses, which she is likely to lose.

You want to know what I think? Well I’m going to tell you anyway. There is a higher force at work here. This my friends is divine retribution at work. Directors of Toys Are Us are being punished for appalling grammar and that backwards R in their logo. Quite right too I say. Let this be a warning to other influential brands trying to ruin my child’s grammar and spelling.