The masters of smalltalk have to be taxi drivers, barbers and publicans (Google translate: barkeepers). I have wondered for decades what humorous stories publican Albert Pierrepoint shared with his appreciative clientele, as they handed over their shillings encouraging him with the words, “And one for yourself”.

For Pierrepoint had an interesting sideline – he was Britain’s public executioner of choice. Some of the most notorious villains of the 20^th century passed through his rope until he hung up his boots in 1956. If the stories are to be believed, he never treated that work as a laughing matter, and – indeed – even once had to hang one of his own customers with whom he had regularly sung duets across the bar.

A short, disagreeable piece on the Israel Tax Authority’s website made me think of Pierrepoint the other day. In an attempt at humour, a report of the results of a spot audit at two of Tel Aviv’s open air food markets was laced with quotes from the caught-red-handed miscreants: ‘ I am careful to register sales but I am after an accident and take pills.’ ‘The paper roll on the till ran out and, just as you arrived, I put in a new one.’ ‘My accountant told me I don’t need to register credit card transactions, only cash ones.’

Now, apart from none of these lines being side-splittingly funny (it IS a tax authority website, after all), there is an element of gratuitous cruelty or, at minimum, a lack of sensitivity. This was not an edition of Candid Camera. As American humorist Dave Barry once wrote after being selected for random audit by the IRS: ‘Remember that, even though income taxes can be a “pain in the neck,” the folks at the IRS are regular people just like you, except that they can destroy your life.’ What did the inspectors expect the panicked market stallholders to say?

I cannot help but believe this is all about the modern world’s obsession with self-promotion. Gone are the days when people with naturally anonymous occupations (like tax inspectors and accountants) beavered away anonymously – their reputation earned for their true professionalism rather than their vacuous razzmatazz.

Years ago, I happened to be at one of Tel Aviv’s main tax offices when a middle-aged man – having evidently been told that he was to be hung out to dry due to chronic non-payment of taxes – went crazy. The inspector was about to call security, when the soon-to-retire Chief Collection Officer came out of his private office, put his arm around the individual, said some soothing words and led him into his office where he offered him a coffee. However much the individual was in the wrong, the tax official understood his distress.

So, if you want to make fun of somebody, how about the Globes newspaper report the other day that the Israeli Tax Authority is unable to collect as much as a billion shekels from foreign assessees because neither the Bank of Israel nor the commercial banks are willing to facilitate payment of, what might be, laundered funds? A case of ‘hoisted with their own petard’? What a joke.