When Queen Victoria opened the Great Exhibition in 1851, Britain was the world’s leading industrial power, producing more than half its iron, coal and cotton cloth. Well, I don’t think Her Late Majesty would be very amused to hear from her great-great granddaughter how the country she bequeathed to her descendants in perpetuity is currently faring…
Eurotunnel vision
After arriving in London en route to America, an acquaintance's grandfather decided to kill time at Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park. It was 1906, and he, similar to my own grandparents, had fled a pogrom in Russia. Despite having his heart set on New York, he changed his mind when he heard an itinerant speaker…
Double Dutch
Back in the days when there were twelve pence to a shilling and twenty shillings to a pound, there was an urban myth of a retired Maths teacher who runs into his worst student as the latter climbs out of a Rolls Royce. The younger man embraces his old nemesis, proceeds to thank him for…
Bad Cumpany
If, like me, you have been wondering for decades what the European Parliament is there for, wonder no more. Following a recent vote, the august institution is considering setting up an investigations unit to tackle two humongous European fraud schemes named improbably 'cum-cum' and 'cum-ex'. The first warning that something was afoot came in 1992,…
Brussels Sprouts
"I never forget a face, but in your case I will be glad to make an exception". Groucho Marx's famous line haunted me the other day as I tried, in vain, to remember the name, face or other distinguishing feature of the first (and only) person I ever met who worked in Brussels with the…
In God (Alone) We Trust
When the news broke last Sunday that a Boeing 737 had inexplicably missed the runway at Bali airport and ended up in the sea without, miraculously, any loss of life, I couldn't resist a sardonic smile. In the closing pages of Swedish author Jonas Jonasson's improbably titled "The 100-year-old man who climbed out the window and disappeared",…
Faulty Powers
A month shy of the 40th anniversary of its first broadcast, I was impressed when my teenage son asked me last week whether I had ever seen the Cheese Shop sketch. He was astounded when I started quoting from it and informed him that Monty Python had defined humour for my generation (sorry Yanks, it…
Risks of the import/export/import business
Back in the sixties when my all-time superhero, Batman, used to dress like he was going to a neighbourhood Halloween party, actors Adam West and Burt Ward would issue warnings to stupid children not to try any of their stunts at home. That was sound advice. While they had the full attention of the little weirdos…
Rocket tax
At the dawn of my career when I would flit from audit client to audit client, red and green pens at the ready, every accounting department would resonate at least once each day to the gravelly voice of Bonnie Tyler singing "Every now and then I fall apart". Well, last week scientists finally proved (almost) that she was…
Waltz or requiem?
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…
Tax Break 