But he plays for Stoke?

Michael Owen has announced his retirement form football today

That's odd, that is, because he already announced his retirement from football, when he announced that he was joining Stoke.

First day at the new job

First mass for the new pope today. I wonder if he's got pre-mass nerves? Does he have a pre-mass checklist? Do you think he has a lucky silly hat? A warm up routine, with a few gentle genuflections before risking injury (he is seventy eight years old or something) waving his blessings to the gathered throng?

Do you think, under the dress, there's some functional lycra cycle shorts? Primark jogging bottoms? Jimmy Savile speedos? Eric Morecambe sock suspenders? A replica River Plate football kit?

There has to be a Madonna / Maradona; Deus / Diego; hand of God gag in there, but I lack the imagination to bring it to life.

I do find it absurd that, when not so far away scientists are on the way to observing and understanding the Higg's Boson, there's all this dressing up, burning incense, rite and ritual still being bought into. It's the ceremony, as much as anything else, that I just can't fathom. It costs a fortune, ceremony. Money that could be better spent. Like on fireworks...

...or Cyprus...

...where they've had the brilliant idea of raiding 10% of everyone's bank account to pay for more bailing out. I know we've done something similar, just through taxes, but somehow

“That tax you pay? We're going to give some of it to RBS so they can continue paying huge salaries and bonuses for (a) failure, and (b) failure that has adversely affected everyone”

while galling, is less painful than

“Oy. Empty your pockets. Very good. You've saved 10,000 euros for your retirement, well done. Here's 9,000 of them back”.

What trickles down pours down

A couple of questions:

If we need to pay huge salaries and bonuses, because otherwise all the star bankers will depart our shores (wipe away those tears) and somewhere else will reap their brilliance and the benefits therefrom (the trickle down effect), then how come:

We're not experiencing those trickle down benefits now?

We're still buying into this myth hundreds of years after it was mocked, ridiculed, broken into tiny pieces and trampled into the ground (The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, George Orwell, among others)?

The only thing evident, trickling down from those on mega-money, is utter contempt for everone who isn't?