Tax and morals: we're all spared!

Phew! If you've paid someone in cash, it looks like you have a respite from eternal damnation. Apparently, even big Dave Cameron has done it...so it must be OK.

What a lot of nonsense, eh? Of course what the poor bloke who made this latest "morally wrong" pronouncement was saying was not that it's wrong to pay someone in cash, but that it is wrong if you are knowingly conniving in tax evasion by so doing. Trouble is, we all live in a world of sound-bites and headlines and anything requiring any kind of cerebral effort is wasted on us, so the nuance of his statement has wafted away on the breeze and he is left, like a bloke who thought the party was fancy dress with a Nazi theme, looking silly and alone.

It's an increasingly common occurrence that people are misunderstood, not because they have failed to express themselves clearly but because we have failed to look beyond the headline. This isn't really a new phenomenon: Thomas Beckett became a martyr because of a small conversational misunderstanding. What's the answer to this? It's probably to not say anything of any subtlety at all - just go for the spin without the substance.

Which reminds me of the fabulous "2012" TV show which finished last night (if you missed them, get onto the iplayer or the DVD store now). The star is the wonderfully vacuous Siobhan from the PR firm. Although her conversation consists mainly of "totally", "cool" and "the thing with this is..." she actually saves the "Olympics Deliverance Team" from disaster repeatedly as hard-wired into her otherwise empty head is the notion that all that matters is the TV image and the headline. So using a chocolate-covered nut instead of an acorn, or computer-generated fireworks instead of real ones is fine as no one will know the difference. She's right, of course.

And speaking of the Olympics, it all kicks off today - quite literally in fact, with women's football. Now, you may find it odd that women's football exists at all and astounding that it's an Olympic sport but get with it guys...the thing with this is, it's totally about inclusivity and the legacy angle is, like, really cool...plus, it's chicks in shorts fighting each other...totally...