an Argentine writer has been applying himself to wider questions of social injustice. Gonzalo Otalora has written a book entitled ¡Feo! (Ugly!), which calls for the taxation of good-looking people to counteract the natural advantages they have over munters.

"Countless studies show that ... it's easier for them to find jobs; they're paid more and find partners more easily," he says.

As you may possibly have already suspected, the genesis of Mr Otalora's tome lies in his years as a pallid, bespectacled, bepustuled youth in Buenos Aires, where he stood out like a sore, myopic thumb amid his buff compatriots

Some men would simply have retired, defeated - or moved to Britain - but Otalora used his experiences to formulate his radical policy of redistributive justice for the greater good.

We could either tax all celebrities or have a 24-hour-a-day reality show in which every member of society is assessed as taxably hot or not by a panel of vituperative judges.