"That'll be slightly less than you were expecting to pay, madam"

I don't know about you but I keep going into shops and getting charged slightly less than I was expecting to pay for things. So I went into Bon Marche and bought a woolly hat that said £5 on the price tag and the woman behind the counter charged me... £4.89 for it.

And I went into Caffe Nero and carefully added up the cost of a cappuccino and pain au chocolat only to be told it wasn't the £3.40 I was expecting to pay but... £3.36.

Then I remembered: it's the 15% instead of 17.5% VAT rate, stupid!

It might not save the economy, but the reduction in the VAT rate has resulted in an extra (and welcome) surreal daily twist to what is already a pretty surreal winter.