On the Beat

Until recently, I had been spared the pain of spam, the crowding out of useful email by junk email. Somehow, though, my personal email address has been discovered by the purveyors of this junk, and I now get several spam emails a day.

( Spam! Wonderful Spam! )

Plaisir du Chocolat has gone into administration (ie it's gone bust).

Walking along George Street on a gloriously sunny day, I noticed a beggar sitting beneath a blanket by a bus stop. As usual, I shook my head when he asked if I had any change, and I walked on. (I can’t even remember if the beggar was male or female. I said he; perhaps I should have said she?)

A few steps on, I saw a handful of scrunched-up £20 notes lying at the feet of a well-dressed girl in dark glasses; she was searching her purse – whether for the money or not, I don’t know, but the notes, perhaps £100-worth, had clearly fallen from her purse.

I said as I passed, Is that your money? She was very grateful, she stooped to pick it up, and I walked on.

And then I thought, had the beggar seen the money? What could he have done with it – what difference would it have made to his life?

So, where is the kharma balance for that? Was that a good deed, or a bad deed?

(On another tack, though, this is probably the fourth time this year that I have spotted money – or a wallet – in the street. That is probably four more times than it has happened in the last five years.)