31 MARCH 1990, Page 23

A DICTIONARY OF CANT

SELF-FINANCING. New bright ideas such as compulsory dog registration are being advertised as 'self-financing' schemes. What it means is that the schemes will have a power to take some money away from the people upon whose business they intrude. In that respect, the Viking nose tax by which the Vikings licensed their neighbours' possession of noses, and reserved a vivid penalty for tax evaders, was a self-financing scheme, and an altogether workable plan for funding local government.

Nigel Burke