I have never been one for beer or pubs. Boasting one Scottish parent, my tipple has always been whisky - my interest stretching back to long-forgotten Hogmanay parties when, as we rang in the New Year, a relative would knock on the front door and "first foot" carrying a piece of coal in one hand and…
And so this is Christmas
In London for a client meeting last week, I decided to take in the Oxford Street Christmas Lights on my way to the airport. While, back in the smog-filled Decembers of my childhood, the lights adorning the length of Britain's premier shopping street carried fairy tale themes of Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm, this…
Is the clock ticking for Switzerland?
Towards the end of 2010, in one of his last interviews, John F Kennedy's iconic speechwriter, Ted Sorensen, shared a previously unpublicized titbit concerning the 1960 Presidential Election. At 3am on Election Night, Richard Nixon gave a not-exactly- concession speech (he officially conceded the following afternoon). Watching the event on TV, Kennedy turned to Sorensen and…
A funny thing happened on the way to the Forum
As a kid, did you ever dream of an extra tap in the kitchen that dispensed endless lashings of Coca Cola and Strawberry Milkshake? Or what about being let loose for an afternoon inside a locked, and deserted, sweet shop? Well, the not-so-juvenile tax practitioners of Bungabungaland woke up on November 21 to a dream come true. A…
Mas or Messi?
Barcelona. There was a time, not so long ago, when the capital of Catalonia was not yet known for Freddy Mercury's super-hit of the same name, when the 1992 Summer Olympics had not yet produced gold, when Carlos Ruiz Zafon had not yet got round to romanticizing La Rambla and the mysterious Cemetery of Forgotten Books, when Gaudi's…
Tax Break 