As Inquisitions go, the Spanish one went quite recently. The last garroting took place in 1826, with abandonment of the 350 year-old program in 1834. Portugal had, by then, put that sad part of its history behind her, while the Papal States, and their offshoot The Vatican, finally got round to announcing their Inquisition's requiem in 1908, and…
Spaghetti Westerners
The word around the Roman Forum is that Italy is on the verge of a Renaissance. After three years of recession, modest growth is expected this year. Regular readers may recall Giovanni and Guiseppe, two Italian plumbers who tried their luck in England about three years back. Thanks to improved employment prospects, they have returned…
Judge for yourself
Silvio Berlusconi has a mission. Having already successfully nobbled two branches of government - the executive and legislature - he is out gunning for the third. In a speech that in any other country would have had him up in front of the Beak accused of incitement, the newly convicted (this one's for tax evasion) former…
Roman Circus
"He is not the Messiah, he is a very naughty boy". Thus spake Mandy Cohen, mother of Brian, to the ignorant mob besieging her home, rejecting their mindless veneration of her son. Her statement would have been appropriate at many points in history - the world has had no shortage of false messiahs. The human condition…
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…
La dolce vita
A headline on the front page of today's International Herald Tribune caught my eye: "Fighting anti-tax mind-set, Italy deploys new tactic: Shame". Given that this was Italy and that Italy is populated by Italians, the first thing that crossed my mind was, "Yeh..Shame they got caught". On viewing the accompanying photograph of a class full of angelic children…
Tax Break 