That should really help beer drinkers and persuade them to vote him back into power. To the average drinker who has 10 pints a night, it is worth ten pence an evening and thus 70p a week.
But George is sadly apparently not a reader of this website. The singular of pence is 'penny' and thus it is 'one penny' he has taken off the duty, not 'one pence', as he said in his speech. I'm sure I've mentioned that before. After all his wildly expensive education, George still can't get the singular of 'pence'.
It is the same difference as between one denarius and numerous denarii in Latin and it would have been woe betide us if we had got that wrong at our school.
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On similarly fiscal matters, apologies for the Cheltenham Preview which failed to highlight much apart from Peace & Co, which was marked up as the best bet of the week. But I have been adding up my prospects of taking my pension early and retiring at 56.
Can I seriously survive on a reduced pension, reduced from what isn't going to be much even if I stay on to 60. No, I can't. Existing might be viable but emergency requirements like replacing the hot water heater or those essential luxuries like concerts, books and records would have to become rare treats rather than a staple diet. But next week should be better and thus I should make it to the next target, which is Easter.
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And in an unprecedented food review here, I must say how great it was to be able to have Linda McCartney Deep-Filled Country Pies last night, my first for several years.The oven on my old cooker stopped working a long time ago but I make do as best I can and did so without using that. But the one thing I missed were those wonderful pies.
But last week I took delivery of a new cooker, from a wonderfully helpful man from Curry's who fitted it. And the first thing I looked for in Sainsbury's were those pies and, guess what, the fridge was empty of them. But they were there the next time and so I bought four and had two of them as soon as I got home, to celebrate the occasion. I think the recommended dose is probably one.
They have lost nothing in those intervening years that I now regard as the Lost Years, in fact they are exactly the same. They are succulent and gorgeous and include their own gravy and have the great advantage over a meat pie in that they don't taste of death and the ludicrous sacrifice of one of our mammal cousins.
Linda may or may not have been the most talented one in Wings but she certainly found a good recipe for a pie.
The only downside to them is that they take 40 mins at Gas Mark 7 and that contravenes one of my culinary principles, which is that I don't like my dinner to take longer to cook than it takes to eat.
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I didn't make it to PPS last night, the meeting of the Portsmouth Poetry Society, on the subject of mondegreens, those misheard words.
But I must make use of my small contribution here, which is three pop records that I am mentioned in.
Which are The Monkees, Dave Green Believer,
Cheer up, Sleepy Jean.
Oh, what can it mean
to a Dave Green Believer
and a Homecoming Queen ;
The Lovin Spoonful, What a Day for a Dave Green, and David Cassidy's,
I'm just a Dave Green, I'm
just walking in the rain,
chasing after rainbows
I may never find again.
And that is one of the many reasons I like The Monkees and David Cassidy rather than John Coltrane, Frank Zappa or Demis Roussos, or any of those ultra-cool acts. None of them wrote any songs about me.
