Rosemary Macdonald - A Tribute...

...You will have noticed, no doubt, that in response to H's modest proposal the other day for a 'Fat Tax' to cure the nation of its habitual obesity, the Government has rushed out its own silly idea instead to reward lardies who lose weight.

A ridiculous and a preposterous notion you'll agree. Why on earth should good money be spent to reward people for failing to maintain dietary control in the first place?

What? Fifty quid to shed a stone, then a further fifty when you put it back on and lose it once more! I think not!

But, they argue, companies will benefit from a fitter workforce; conveniently overlooking the fact that most fatties are not workers. (There aren't indeed many office couches on which potatoes can lounge, you'll have spotted. Apart that is from in the Directors' suite, but that's a different matter altogether!)

And who would pay for such a nonsensical scheme? Need we ask!

You can imagine the ire and sharp gritting of teeth that greeted this latest Government nonsense in the Palladas household as we munched on a dry biscuit for tea!

Pens were firmly grasped to send off a cannon of rebuke to the appropriate national organ, when sadly one was deflected from the purpose by a different Canon altogether. Canon Derek no less a personage - though no more - of the Cathedral 'phoning to ask if we were interested in hosting an ecumenical choir from Bulgaria the week following.

Normally you would have found me charitably disposed to take on his off-casts - clearly the Cathedral didn't want them, so send them out to the hapless parishes to smile and sing was the note of the call - but being in such pestilential mood I could only respond to his reasonable, if devious, request, by enquiring if any of the choir weighed more than ten stone as my chancel steps were a bit wonky at present.

From the ensuing brief silence at the other end of the telephone it was clear that dear - and he is - Derek was wrestling with the startling possibility that a diocesan cleric of his keeping had gone suddenly, barkingly and irrecoverably mad. A difficult thought for a quiet Thursday of course.

Resisting clearly the challenge of questioning my sanity, Derek merely soothingly replied that he would take that for a 'no' and would see if the Rev. 'Simple' Simon down the road fancied some folk hymns in a language none would comprehend.

That done and dusted though, my attention had been sufficiently deflected not to sound off to the Telegraph on the subject of pain and not gain for fatties.

Well, hence today my tribute and thanks to Rosemary Macdonald, a simply splendid woman of Suffolk, who wrote on behalf of myself and millions of rational like-minded coves the very point that I would have made had I made it to make it. Viz., fat people should not be rewarded but should be punished instead.

Blessed female. Even used the very phrase 'Fat Tax' that we had but coined, H and I, the other evening.

Clearly then a groundswell here, a mood and a tide to catch: "What do we want?" "More fat tax!" "When do we want it?" "Now!"