Any professional Opinion Letter writer knows that the invention of the footnote was a godsend. Enabling the eternally cautious tax lawyer or accountant to throw caution to the wind in the main body of his document, the footnote can be stuffed with endless bits of what the paying client calls 'fudge' and the expert refers to…
The Gentle Tax
There was a time when the mere mention of the name Germaine Greer - pioneering feminist author of 'The Female Eunuch' - made grown men (and only grown men) adopt the Direct-free-kick-defensive-wall position favoured by all modern footballers. I had no such reaction when, the other day, I turned on my car radio and was sucked…
Telling it like it is (?)
Alan Coren, the late editor of Punch, once wrote that, while touring Europe he climbed to the top of a hill to get a panoramic view of Luxembourg - only to find there was a tree in the way. The first time I flew into Luxembourg airport a few years ago, was also the first…
Hungary for knowledge
1984 (the 326 page book, rather than the 366 day year of the same name) describes how a totalitarian regime could keep a lid on knowledge through a Ministry of Truth, Newspeak's Doublethink, and the dreaded Thought Police. Democratically elected governments have, traditionally, had more trouble in keeping a handle, let alone a lid, on…
And now for something hardly different
The surviving members of the Monty Python team must be cock-a-hoop over the cover of the (just about) current issue of The Economist. Under the headline: 'Europe's Economy', a parrot lies dead receiving an infusion, while Angela Merkel comments, 'It's only resting'. No further explanation required. Forty-five years on, the Parrot Sketch is part of the lingua…
Maintaining The Berne Rate
Sorry, sorrowful Switzerland. This pious country, which has been supplying the Vatican with its psychedelic army for the last five centuries, has been forced to take heed of the words of Handel's Messiah (with apologies to Isaiah): 'Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be laid low.' After hundreds of years where, thanks…
Make it a double, Paddy
The scene in Disney's Snow White, where the wicked witch entices the heroine with a poisoned apple, has fueled the nightmares of generations of kiddies since it first saw the light of day (or should that be 'the dark of night'?) in 1937. I had double the reason to be terrified as my parents had…
Viva, Barcelona!
'In the beginning was the word' might have been the take on things in the Gospel according to John, but by my calculation, the oldest profession has never had much use for words (other than when haggling over price), and the second oldest profession (mine) has always relied on numbers; in any event, some years…
Fish without an aye?
The only thing I am prepared to learn from this Scottish Referendum lark is that, if you give people an overdose of democracy, their brains come flying out of their ears. By the time some of you read this, the whole farce may well be over - decided one way or the other: the only statistical…
The Good Old Days?
By the time you get to my age (I, just about, remember what I was doing when I heard JFK had been shot), there are not many childhood ambitions you have either not fulfilled or not given up on. I made it to the Volvo, but not President of the United States (an early disappointment reading…
Tax Break 