GRAND LARCENY

The public are furious about Members of Parliament having made false claims about their expenses. Evidently some of them have claimed thousands of pounds for their 'second homes' with dubious items such as £110 for hair straighteners! They are being branded as crooks and thieves. I expect it wont be long before sweet shops start putting notices in the window saying 'No more than two MPs in the shop at a time.'

So how honest are you?. Have you ever 'stolen' anything from your place of work? Maybe some stationery, a pen or two? If you work in the food industry did you pinch some groceries? In the fashion business you might have snitched a small item of clothing? Is that enough questions?

The choice of what to pilfer is rather limited by where you work. The perks of my job as a teacher were few and far between. There's a limit to how much you can do with boxes of chalk! I suppose road sweepers don't often buy brushes. Florists surely don't have to buy flowers for their homes. Postmen must have cupboards full of those red elastic bands they use to keep letters in bundles. Though on second thoughts, judging by how many I find outside my front door, they don't bother.

So what would you say is the most pilfered item of all from workplaces? I think my guess would have been pens. Well I would be wrong. No, the most pilfered items from our work places are toilet rolls. How pathetic is that? We Brits are not very inventive if the best we can come up with to steal from work is loo paper. Makes you ashamed of our nation!