Low flying pig subsidy.

If you go to a nice little site called farmsubsidy.org and put Lufthansa into the sweet little search bar, specifying England as the location you wish to search, you get a web page that tells you, allegedly, how much farm subsidy in the form of payments to LSG LUFTHANSA SERVICE/SKYCHEFS/GCC LIMITED were made in the years 2003-04 and 2004-05.

It is set out as GBP £127 914 (€187 763).

Good gracious, I hear you say, have the Germans learned how to sow, and reap the fields of East Anglia from the sky? Do pigs fly now and are they housed in Heinkels and Messerschmidts that endlessly circle the fens? Does a Lufthansa airbus sneak into Stanstead and let a few herds of Holstein cattle out to graze the runway before extraordinary bovine rendition spirits them to a backstreet abattoir in Dusseldorf? Up to a point Lord Copper.

It is further alleged in my egovbulletin@headstar.com of the 09 December 2008 11:27 (see... for the story) that the airline is in receipt of substantial subsidies on the basis that each time a Lufthansa aircraft carrying in-flight meals travels beyond the borders of the EU, they technically become food exporters.

Doh!

Don't know why I picked on the poor old Germans. For you Fritz the subsidy is available as long as you get your towel on the cash machine first!

Other starvelings able to claim subsidy doubloons have included:-

Prince Albert of Monaco, Ted Turner, Congressman Marion Berry (D-AK), the Danish State Prison Service, Nestlé, the Duke of Westminster and Dutch Agriculture Minister Cees Veerman

See......., and we can rest assured that in this time of great financial hardship money will be spent wisely to pursue industry and economic benefit for us all!

The rich are always with us. Amen!