Madam, – In the mid 1990s I sat beside a Guinness sales representative on an airplane in west Africa. He was returning from a Guinness promotion in an urban slum. I asked him why he thought handing out free beer was a good idea and he replied: “If we can make those poor people happy, even for just a few hours, then I think it’s a good thing”. I disagreed with him then and still do, but the recent celebration of Arthur’s Day tells me that things haven’t changed: poor people still need all the happiness they can get and it’s easier to mobilise people for beer than for social change. We each should ask ourselves why. – Yours, etc,