THE ESSENTIALS.

Its true that man can’t live by bread alone, but even if he did, first he has to find a shop that sells flour. Of course you need to have the money to pay for it too. Spare a thought for a great many pensioners, the homeless, and the unemployed, for whom living on the essentials is the norm. They have been joined of course by sole traders and owners of small businesses who are finding that whatever financial help was so generously promised is frankly not there, or at the very best some punishing weeks away. While the press hammer premier league and premiership sports bodies arguing over if players should forfeit a 20 or 30% reduction in wages, hedge fund managers and the like take their hourly exercise at night to avoid the radar. The bulging garages and fridge freezers of the panic stricken general public prepare for a long, and looks like even longer siege. If you weren’t on line for a supermarket before the lockdown hard luck, but you can always avail yourself of the entrepreneurial warehouse distributors who are kindly offering you delivery of 24 tins of beans at a time, which will mean you will need to keep the windows open permanently; or wine ( fast becoming an essential ) at over £120 a case. A bargain specifically aimed at Alex Ferguson. It seems that the message is not always getting through to those who have that if we all valued and kept to the essentials it would help those who have not. As Emily Maitliss said recently, ‘this illness is not the great leveler’. It is certainly however ALL our responsibility to make sure it is.