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…
Blessed are the consumers (part 2)
When former US President Herbert Hoover flew down to Argentina in 1946 it was to request that the newly elected President Juan Peron order a massive grain shipment to Europe aimed at staving off a post-war famine. Following his successful mission, he commented that Peron's young wife, Eva, had the brains of Eleanor Roosevelt and…
Blessed are the consumers (part 1)
One of my first memories as a child is of the working forge across the road from our home where rag-and-bone men and other deniers of the 20th century could take their carthorses to be shod. A couple of days ago I was driving with my son through an ultra-orthodox enclave, where the regular upkeep of roads…
Composing tax laws
Returning to the gym last weekend after a fortnight, literally, off the treadmill, my rendition of "I'm back" in a passable Austro-Californian accent failed to register any reaction on the face of the young lady manning the reception desk. Instead, she merely ordered me to furnish my annual medical certificate that covers them if I suddenly keel over pulseless on…
Art for art’s sake
Brussels sprouts are the ultimate passion food. You either love them or hate them. I last gobbled one down 41 years, 2 months 3 weeks and 1 day ago. Condemned to a childhood of Friday night dinners with the accursed things, I eventually developed a technique of swallowing them whole. Since my marriage raw sprouts have…
Embracing the taxman
The most idiosyncratic teacher from my schooldays died last week. Feared by the new boys, persecuted by the middle school and respected by the senior pupils, he was the quintessential British schoolmaster of the mid-to-late twentieth century. Armed with a library of twenty aphorisms (I can, to this day, repeat every one by heart including his motto: "I may be fairly…
The Lord giveth and the Government taketh away
In recent months, both the Obama Administration and Republican Congressional leaders have suggested that tax deductions for charitable donations should, in certain circumstances, be curbed in the future - although, in keeping with all things Campaign 2012, the facts are a bit thin on the ground. Frankly, I did not give this particular tax break much thought until…
When Harry met Fabi
As a devoted Tottenham Hotspur fan, I was delighted to hear yesterday that manager Harry Redknapp had been cleared of all charges of tax evasion by a unanimous decision of the jury in his trial at Southwark Crown Court. This opened the way for him to be eligible for the job of manager of…
Hard times, great expectations
Mid-Atlantic. 35,000 feet. Dead of night. Everyone around me fast asleep. My seat bathed in the eery glow of one small lamp. Chapter 22: "A Gritty State of Things Come On". The height of the novel. I turn the last page and briefly scroll my eyes to the bottom of the text. The final full stop…
For tax advisor and country
There is a framed football shirt hanging on my son's wall. It is half blue, half white - the blue half sporting the insignia of the Israel Football Association and the white half the Three Lions of England. Scrawled in indelible marker across the English half is the inscription "Good Luck, Bobby Charlton" ( for the benefit…
Tax Break 