By Keith Tondeur
Monarch. 160 pages. £6.99
ISBN 1 85424 349 7
Just as we could take abortion as not only a sad fact but also a metaphor which illustrates the spirit of the age, so we can with the National Lottery. It has highlighted the greed, the selfishness and desire to escape in a society of gamblers.
Keith Tondeur looks at the subtleties of the way gambling is marketed as a virtue. There is the sop to the conscience under the guise of giving to a good cause. But it is, in fact, the enticing of 90% of the population into a bad bet buttressed by the emotional pressure that 'it could be you'. It is, as the book tells us, a tax on despair and government taxing by the back door.
