I was at dinner with friends late last year when one of the female guests announced that her husband was taking her skiing ‘for her special birthday’. My in-built accountant’s abacus went into immediate action calculating the lady’s possible age. This took into account the ages of her children, her looks, and the milestones of her life, as shared with anyone who had been willing to listen between the chopped liver and the soup. In a state of complete disbelief, I disingenuously told her how wonderful she looked for 50. ‘No, I am 55 actually,’ she replied, to my absolute lack of surprise. ‘What the hell is special about 55?’ I thought too loudly. ‘Aren’t you planning on making it to 60?’

I mention this incident because, for some months, I have been debating how to celebrate this, my 150th post. If truth be told, 150 is not a landmark – the Americans hardly bothered with the anniversary of the end of the Civil War and Lincoln’s assassination, earlier this month. But, at the rate I am writing these days, number 200 is looking dangerously  post-mortem.

I figured it was about time I revisited the tab which has  been up there at the top of the page from the start: ‘What is this blog?’ The first paragraph bemoaned my marginalization at social gatherings – anyone and everyone running a mile when they heard I was a tax geek.

Well, 150 – I hope vaguely entertaining – posts later, I found myself late the other night sitting around a friend’s kitchen counter with a senior tax official (with whom I have been on excellent terms for years), and a tax lawyer whose name I, mercifully, still do not know. The tax official (a woman) and I were sharing reminiscences of some of the quirks of the tax authority in our early days twenty years back. Among the memories, there was the period when, if the head of the main tax office – later Tax Commissioner – saw me in the corridor, he would stroke my arm and say soothing things to me because he had evidently been convinced by his deputy that I was a potential mass murderer (I had my own doubts about the deputy).

Some time into our conversation, the nice tax lawyer gentleman whose name I still don’t know decided to get in on the act. He asked us about our experience with tax levies on the employers of Sub-Saharan refugees. When we both said that we had no experience, he launched into a 40 minute monologue on the subject, pausing occasionally to ask our views, just to make sure we hadn’t dropped off. In fact, I don’t know if it was only 40 excrutiating minutes because, at 12.45am, my wife thankfully came over to whisk me home. He was still going strong, apparently oblivious as to whether he had an audience or not.

So, I can state categorically that there is nothing more boring than listening to someone talking tax. If you see me walking into a room, you will be perfectly within your emotional rights to look the other way. ‘Who said tax is boring? It was me, actually.’ Nothing has changed.