All I’m asking for is coherence of abuse

This morning, on the way up to my desk, I bought a croissant. In doing so, I immediately penalised almost everybody who sits anywhere near me, because I had one and none of them did. And I didn’t even feel particularly guilty about it. I’m a right bastard, me.

And that’s not all. I came into work by Tube, using my Oyster card. In doing so, I now realise I was penalising all those people out there who would be just as good at doing my job as I am, but can’t afford the £2 to get to Wapping. If I had any decency, any soul, I’d forgo Transport for London altogether, and my bike (which I penalised bikeless people by buying), and walk to work, thereby creating a level playing field. But I don’t. A bastard, like I said.

Still, it’s swings and roundabouts. The other guy on my desk, Ed Smith, is a dapper sort of gent, forever turning up to work in tailored suits and intriguing tweedy things, which penalises me because I’ll often come in looking like I’ve slept in a bin. Behind me, also, there are at least three or four people who are quite a lot cleverer than I am, which renders me liable to be penalised in conversations when I occasionally don’t understand what they are talking about.

Somebody, somewhere is always being bloody penalised. It’s exhausting. If you come down just on the wrong side of the child benefit threshold, but others come down just on the right side, then you’re being penalised. Um, sort of. If universities are going to increase their fees, then nobody is quite clear whether it’s poor students who will be penalised or middle-class students who will be penalised, but it’s bound to be one or the other.