Equality

It's one of the three words in the famous motto of the French State: Equality, and two letters which arrived on the same day summed it up. One was to tell us that we earned too much to get state aid with our mortgage repayments (OK, fair do; never thought we'd get it, anyway), the other to inform Mrs. Fingers that, as an 'official job seeker' she would find enclosed a free rail pass with which to tour around the department as often as the mood takes her. In one delivery, our household was classed as 'sufficiently well-off not to need' yet also 'in need of help'. Go figure. Why not just give us the cash to help with the mortgage and we'll have a day out on it with the Fingernails somewhere? It's a grand scheme, though, and maybe I'll be happy of it one day, though I'm not sure a free trip on SNCF down the boondocks will yield much in my line of work. Still, as Equality goes, it's not bad, though judging by customer service in this country I think the 'Fraternity' bit needs a bit of work.