A while ago, I had a puncture. I was on my way home and suddenly I was stranded. For some reason it never occurred to me that I could hail a taxi to take me home and expect you to pay for it.

According to reports at the weekend, taxpayers - you and me, in other words - will be stiffed to the tune of £20 million to pay for the flights home of some people caught out by the collapse of XL. The Civil Aviation Authority runs a compensation scheme to take care of stranded holidaymakers and to refund forthcoming holidays that won't take place. But the scheme is already £21 million in deficit. So guess who is going to pick up the tab? You and me.

There's a warm glow inside me knowing that, as I type this, a portion of the fee will be taken from me by the Inland Revenue to pay for someone else's holiday. Actually it's not a warm glow so much as a red hot rage. I've yet to see a sensible explanation of why the rest of us should be forced to put our hands in our pockets to pay for someone else's bad luck on holiday.

It's sad. It's tough. It's annoying. And it should be - unfortunately - expensive. If I was a victim of XL, I'd be mighty angry that I am not going to get home as planned. But I would not expect the rest of the country to pay for my journey. Just as good luck is not something we can expect as of right, so bad luck happens and we sometimes must suffer the consequences - especially when, as in this case, we are either too stupid or too cheapskate to take out holiday insurance to cover such an eventuality.

But the idea that good luck is ours to enjoy and bad luck is everyone else's problem is now endemic.

I picked some tomatoes yesterday. I'd been looking forward to eating them for weeks. Lovely, juicy Marmande. But they were rotting, ruined by too much rain. It never occurred to me that I should be compensated. But then I'm not a farmer.

Last year was record-breaking for grain farmers, with prices at £180 a tonne. The recent rain, however, has flattened this year's crop. Some farmers say that they will lose a third of their expected earnings. So the Government's Rural Advocate is asking the Prime Minister to bring forward payment of subsidies due in December under the Common Agricultural Policy.

Farmers embody the worst of all worlds - subsidised to the hilt to distort the market, and then screaming for compensation when things do not go as planned for them.

It's the same story. Good luck is a private boon; bad luck is the taxpayer's cost.

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