I was in Vienna last week for a European tax conference. Inevitably, the Eurozone crisis loomed enormously large but, in addition to the crop of European experts, there were speakers from China, Africa and the US to remind participants that Europe is not an island. Throughout the two days there was one word that refused…
Raising the energy bar
In my salad days, apart from holding down a regular job as an elementary school student, I had some house jobs. Returning home in the freezing dark each winter's eve, my chafed thighs burning from the cold, I would make straight for the soot encrusted scuttle standing guard outside the kitchen door. Carrying it across the yard to the squat bunker opposite I would scoop coal into…
Teaching Mrs Merkel German
Nostalgia ruled for most of last week. While the British indulged in a House of Windsor love fest, the world delighted in snippets of the Queen over her sixty year reign. It was Prince Charles, the King-in-Waiting, who stated the obvious at the Buckingham Palace Doorstep Concert noting that for many people this was the…
God save the queen from taxes!
The Queen (there is only one "Queen") was often lampooned in the 1980s TV series "Spitting Image" . It starred a bunch of incredibly elastic, outrageously exaggerated latex puppets. My favourite sketch had the Queen at her desk, surrounded by her totally dysfunctional latex family, writing Christmas cards to foreign countries. Completing the last card she announced…
Tax Break 