2 Wednesday May 25 2022 | the timestimes2
T
hey say a change is as
good as a rest, so today
I announce my
exciting new career:
I’m becoming a
shoplifter. I know, I
know, a big decision
and a huge challenge,
but I’ve always felt I had it in me yet
was too chicken to try. Hence, when
school friends were shoving Rimmel
Hide and Heal spot concealer down
their knickers and Miners lip gloss into
their bras at Woolworths, I was the
pant-wetter standing outside trilling: “I
totally would join in
guys — hell, yeah —
but I’ve already got
loads of that stuff.”
Even aged eight, when
bolder kids would
push a 2p white
chocolate mouse into
their mouth and exit
the shop laughing, I
pretended I’d done
the same when I
hadn’t. It wasn’t
because I was
morally correct; I was
petrified of being
caught and my dad
finding out.
But now, well, all
bets are off. The
prime minister has
been caught on
camera, arm aloft, raising a toast with
what looks like champagne alongside
Downing Street colleagues during
lockdown on November 13, 2020 —
events we now know were called
“WTF” (wine-time Fridays) — and the
police have let him off scot-free. Yet
strangely police were very happy to,
ooh, let’s see, charge an exhausted care
worker £200 for eating a sandwich in
her car post-shift, handcuff a woman
for buying coffee in the street and fine
a lonely pensioner for meeting friends
at his allotment.
Police have now been advised to
turn a “blind eye” to people who
shoplift food in the cost-of-living crisis
and quite right too. How could they
not? How could they arrest a hungry
person for breaking the law when
Boris Johnson gets to do as he likes?
They have turned myriad blind eyes
to him violating the very rules he set,
when his own posters showed a
woman in an oxygen mask with theITV NEWS EXCLUSIVEWhat pigs
really love
to nibble
The BBC apologised
after a trainee caused
the words on its rolling
news ticker to read:
“Manchester United
are rubbish.” People
sniggered and asked:
“Why say sorry for
being right? Give that
trainee a job.” I was
surprised by the
grovelling response
and its hope that no
Man Utd fans were
“offended”.
Oh, please. Worse
accidents have
happened on screen.
Such as when subtitles
had the weather
forecaster predicting
“heavy breasts in the
west of Scotland”.
(What if your heavy
breasts never
materialised? You’d feel
so cheated.) Breakfast
TV subtitles proclaimed
that Cromer was
“famous for its crap”,
which may be the case
but I think they meant
“crab”. Chinese new
year was heralded the
“Year of the Whores”.
This was nothing
compared to a reporter
on BBC Breakfast
visiting a pig farm. The
subtitles explained that
“the pigs love to nibble
anything that comes
into the shed, like our
willies”. Think rubber
footwear, not porcine
sex. But my favourite
was, when announcing
the start of Car SOS,
the subtitles said: “And
now it’s time for car
sausage.” I imagine the
viewing figures spiked
that day.Scent of
a woman?
Hush now
after outrage was
caused by a tweet that
said 16-year-old girls
“have this creamy,
buttery, slightly sweet
smell that is
unbelievably magnetic”.
Honestly! Can’t say
anything any more,
can you? A tweet from
Jonty Campbell’saccount said this was
“the thing with girls 22
or under... they smell
massively different to a
girl of 28”. Bit overripe
for you, are they, Jonty?
A bit “on the turn”? I
dread to think how he’d
describe the smell of
the over-40s.
It’s a strange old timeisn’t it? The former Tory
MP Imran Ahmad
Khan has been jailed for
molesting a 15-year-old
boy; another MP is
accused of rape; another
was watching porn in
the House. Just as well
the party of “law and
order” is in charge or
we’d be in a right pickle.A Conservative local
election candidate in
Preston has resignedwords: “Look her in the eyes and tell
her you never bend the rules.” It’s the
perfect time to become a shoplifter
because if you are stealing to feed your
children you’re on higher moral
ground than the PM, who appears to
have lied to the House and allegedly
wanted Sue Gray to bin her report.
(Poor Sue Gray. I bet she’s pig-sick of
all this and feels like jacking it in.
Come and be a shoplifter instead, Sue.
I feel ten years younger already.)
Some Tory MPs are still unctuously
claiming it was “not a party” despite
clear photographic evidence of wine,
gin, champagne and
biscuits, but maybe
they’re just
overexcited because
they can smell their
knighthoods in the
post. The only thing
not being drunk on
that table is the hand
sanitiser, though the
night was young.
So I make no
apologies for my new
career, as the future
seems to be lawless.
When I worked in a
supermarket I was
trained on shoplifters’
tricks so I’m ahead of
the game. Cheese,
nappies and razor
blades are the most
stolen, thus most monitored, so
avoid them. Store detectives notice
people in heavy winter coats on a
sunny day, because they’re invariably
full of whisky bottles. Better to wear
roomy Y-fronts instead. It’s a bummer
they don’t provide cardboard boxes
any more, as they used to be the
shoplifter’s friend: ideal for secreting
smoked salmon, deli meats and other
flat goods in the folds. Maybe carry an
A4 folder instead?
What, you’re not suggesting such
flippancy is unethical, are you? But
our own great leader admitted that,
when at university, he let parking fines
pile up on his Fiat and never paid
them because it had Belgian plates.
What’s good for the goose etc. Besides,
in that week in November 2020 my
husband was in hospital having cancer
surgery and I wasn’t allowed to visit
him due to the “rules”. As Downing
Street staff would say at 4pm every
Friday, as fizz corks popped, “WTF”.Carol Midgley
Cheers, Boris! I’m going
to follow your lead and
turn to a life of crime
22 smart ways
The energy price cap is expected to
rise to £2,800 in October. Here’s how
to claw back elsewhere, says deputy
money editor Jessie Hewitson
Y
esterday Ofgem’s chief
executive said the
energy price cap is
expected to rise in
October to about
£2,800. At present the
cap is £1,971 a year,
which itself was a
£693 increase — a 54 per cent rise —
on the previous cap six months earlier.
Sheesh, this cost of living crisis is not
messing about. But you don’t have to
sell up and go off-grid to afford the
next couple of years. You can instead
change a few key spending habits and
watch your personal rate of inflation
go down. Become a tightwad with a
purpose with our tips below.1 Tumble dryer
Tumble drying a load of clothes costs
on average £1.50 a pop, up from just
over £1 at the end of last year. This is
expensive. The cheapest option is to
buy a clothesline or clothes horse.
Another is to buy a heated clothes
rack from Lakeland. On the upside it
costs about 16.8p a load. The downside
is that they cost from £119.2 Take shorter showers
One minute less in the shower each
can save a typical four-person family
£80 a year, according to the Energy
Saving Trust (EST), a campaign group
for energy efficiency. Get kids to sing a
song before getting out at the end (but
not Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody).3 Change your shower head
You can also change your shower
head to one that has flow-limiting
technology to save up to 40 per cent
of water. This may cost about £20-£40,
and they aren’t the most stylish
shower heads, but they will save you
money. The EST estimates that a four-
person household could save up to £75
a year on energy, plus another £120 on
water bills if they have a water meter.4 Fine the kids...
Children are lovely, but goodness they
use a lot of energy. Rogue lights left on
cost about £14 on your annual energy
bills, according to the EST. Leaving on
games consoles, wearing T-shirts and
turning up the heating; all these things
hit you in the wallet. Consider fining
them per offence: start with 10p a go.5... and get them off Roblox
Have you heard of a good book?
Reducing the use of the Xbox or
PlayStation by five hours a week would
save you about £3, according to Loop,
an energy saving app. Cut your use by
this amount each week and you’d save
£154 a year. Good luck with that.6 Switching current account
HSBC is offering £170 to switch your
current account, First Direct £150.
Meanwhile Lloyds and Nationwide are
each offering £125. Switching is easy —
open an account with your new bankand tell them that you’re using the
current account switching service and
when you want to switch.7 Refer a friend to make cash
Chase, JP Morgan’s app-based bank,
will pay you £20 for every new
customer you refer. Depending on
how popular you are — and how good
a salesperson — you can do this up to
20 times, giving you a maximum of
£400. You won’t be selling your friends
a dud account either since the bank
also offers a market-leading rate of
1.5 per cent on its easy-access savings
account and 1 per cent cashback on all
spending. Other companies that will
pay you to refer a friend include the
energy company Octopus, which will
give you and the friend £50 each, and
you can do this an unlimited number
of times. Zen Internet customers can
get £80 vouchers to spend at retailers
including Amazon, Argos and John
Lewis for each referral, while your
friend gets a £20 voucher.8 Ditch the coffee
For some of us it’s Amazon, for others
it’s the coffee on the way to work.
Almost all of us spend money on
things too quickly, or on things we
don’t really need. Implement a
two-day rule, where you have to think
for two days if you really need
something before you buy. For the
latter, take a Thermos of coffee or tea
to work and a long-term attitude to
savings and you will find yourself £621
richer in a year. This assumes you buy
a coffee five days a week for 45 weeks
a year at the average cost of £2.76.9 Turn down the temp on
your boiler
You can reduce the water temperature
on your boiler, which will bring down
your heating bill. This setting is
separate from the temperature you
want your rooms to be, and should be
set at about 75C for the best efficiency
and performance, according to
Vaillant, a manufacturer. In the
summer you can turn it down to about
65C. That will save you between 6 per
cent and 7 per cent on your gas bill.10 Buy kids’ clothes on eBay
or Vinted
The number of shoppers using eBay
doubled this April. Decide on the
labels you’re interested in and set
alerts. I’ve been buying my kids’
clothes second-hand from Vinted —
this week I bought a pair of trousers
for £2. It’s like eBay but without the
haggling — you pay a set amount and
shipping costs on top.11 Shift your sofa
Large pieces of furniture, such as
sofas, absorb heat, so if they are placed
in front of radiators the warmth will
not circulate as efficiently around your
room. Consider it exercise without
having to pay for a gym membership.ingatoastwithg
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