Overheard in charity shop

... by the book section:

Old crone: Which bit of history are you most interested in?

Young crone: Any bit, as long as it doesn't feel like a waste of time.

While trying to come up with a witticism involving historians repeating one another (and wits, likewise), I confess I felt a nagging sympathy for my fellow customer's quandary.

The ethics and aesthetics of shopping

If you insist on going for labels, do remember that all these clothes, regardless of label, are made in the same sweatshop, by the same underage kids who are kept on a diet of bread and water till they have completed their quota of a thousand dozen pieces. (And please don’t give me all that guff about ethical clothes, and shopping with a conscience: if you stop buying, all you’ll do is deprive the kid of even that bread and water; and quite possibly a family of twelve who all depend on his job. Remember that you, dear shopper, have access to clothes from any part of the world. He only has access to that one job.)

If you must wear labels, at least have the decency to wear the fake ones. Or better still, the ones that get the spelling wrong.

- Ashok Ferrey, voice of reason, in Montage magazine.