The tyranny of choice

WHAT has the multi-millionaire global superstar Tony Bennett in common with Fungi, the alcoholic loser in Benefits Street (C4)? At the start of yet another tour this week, 87-year-old Bennett explained how much he loved performing and added: "I have never worked a day in my life." Curiously enough, Fungi said exactly the same.

A STUDY at Harvard Business School suggests that those who "flout traditional dress codes" may appear to have higher status than those around them. On the other hand, you may find yourself employed by someone like the editor I once worked for. When the women's editor turned up in a flower-power trouser suit, he sent her home to change with a gruff warning about not having his reporters coming to work in bloody pyjamas. These days I dare say he'd be sued for thousands. Human rights, innit?

A POOLS winner in every family. That's what George Osborne seems to be promising with his pledge to let pensioners take the full cash amount from their company pension pot instead of having to purchase a boring old annuity. Suddenly Mum or Dad hits 65 and a cheque for £100,000 or more arrives at the door. And so does a procession of people who want to get their hands on the loot. Shysters in smart suits and liars in limos will be queuing up to take your money and "invest" it in various forms of theft. Long-lost friends will tap you up for a loan. And most demanding of all will be family members. The son who needs £50,000 for a sure-fire franchise plan. The daughter who suddenly fancies a £40,000 wedding. The grandchildren who are struggling at a state school and would blossom in an expensive private school. Instead of liberating you, George Osborne's plan has actually exposed you to the greatest tyranny of our age, the tyranny of choice. And that's when you realise that boring old annuities weren't so bad after all.

HOWEVER, let us see what develops. As a rule, you can disregard most of what is said in the 48 hours after any Budget speech. It takes at least three days for the pundits to sift through the fine print in the Red Book. That's the book of infinite detail where all the Budget nasties are hidden. By Sunday we will understand a lot more than we do now.

ROADSIDE sign spotted by a reader in Telford. I blame the schools.

VLAD the Invader's Crimean adventure is similar to Adolf Hitler's Anschluss, the annexation of friendly Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938. However, history does not always repeat itself. Hitler grabbed half of Europe before anyone gave him a bloody nose. Putin, in contrast, already knows the cost in blood of putting troops where they are not wanted: 10,000 body bags in Chechnya and 13,000 in Afghanistan. The Russian president knows the standing ovations will last only until Red Square echoes to the sobs of the mothers of his dead conscripts.

MEANWHILE, the West fights back with economic sanctions. Dammit, we will keep punching ourselves on the nose until it really hurts Putin.

AFTER my piece a few days ago about the spelling auto-correct, a reader tells me of a chap who emailed his neighbour to say: "Bob, I've been riddled with guilt but I've been tapping your wife day and night when you're not around. You see, I'm not getting any at home." Bob was about to remonstrate with his wife when the neighbour sent a second email: "Bob, damn this auto-correct. I meant wifi, not wife."