UK: START WEARING YOUR PAY WITH PRIDE PRIDE.

I sometimes wonder whether the British will ever really get the hang of this capitalism lark. Which is a bit embarrassing given that it's now well over 200 years since capitalism was first invented, or discovered, or described, or explained - or whatever it was that Adam Smith did to it - in Britain. And what with Lady Thatcher's more recent refresher course you might, by now, have expected the British to have grasped, at least, the rudiments of the idea. Sadly this seems far from the case.

I'm thinking in particular of the chap at British Gas (£475,000 per annum), and the other one at British Telecom (£663,000 per annum) who should know better; but equally the average British middle manager (£28,000 per annum) and the average British employee (£13,600 per annum) - all seem to have real problems when it comes to handling a concept as simple as that of the pricing mechanism.

In short, just one whiff of a megabucks salary has everybody from the megabuccaneering captains of industry to the lowest galley wage-slaves all getting into an incredible stew about who works the hardest, or who works the longest hours, or in the nastiest circumstances, or who has to make the toughest decisions.