Alex Salmond, the bank manager-faced First Minister of Scotland, has been making headlines lately due to a referendum planned for 2014 to decide on Scottish independence. What a pity. On a visit to Westminster Abbey a few years ago, I collared a verger and we went on a hunt for the grave of Andrew Bonar…
Bo Peep
Ever since a BBC newsreader put me right about the difference in pronunciation between Gorilla, a type of ape, and Guerrilla, a type of freedom fighter, I have been a bit of a stickler for getting the sounds of words on target. While a gorilla may be anthropomorphically protrayed as a guerrilla, articulation of the latter involves a…
India – hitting investors where it hurts
As a sport that dictates: "when you are out you are in" , the vast majority of the world's population may be forgiven for not understanding cricket. Not so the man on the New Delhi Omnibus for whom the game is a way-of-life. While recent cricket scandals have tended to emanate from India's nemesis, Pakistan, a…
Greatest Britain
What makes Britain great? There is, of course, no single answer (and the French would suggest there is no question), but the nation that gave the world its principal parliamentary system, its principal international language and (sorry, Yanks) its principal sport must have something in its national DNA that sets it apart from all the…
Czech mate
Slovakia spent most of the twentieth century as the hapless side-kick in a Vaudeville double act that was incessantly down on its luck thanks to British and French betrayal, German invasion, Soviet domination and Soviet invasion. When Czechoslovakia finally broke up peacefully in 1993 the junior partner had an uphill battle to establish itself. But…
Vive L’ Hollande
The swashbuckling Alexandre Dumas coined the phrase "cherchez la femme" (literally: look for the woman) that has haunted French culture ever since. In the run up to the French Presidential election it is generally agreed that, had Dominique Strauss-Kahn not fumbled in the wrong pocket of his bathrobe for the gratuity for the chamber maid…
Washington the dream factory
Last year, the Oscar for Best Actor was awarded to someone who feigned inability to speak coherently. This year, the same award went to someone who chose not to speak. The 2012 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor went to that prize's oldest recipient best known for playing a singing sailor whose most memorable line, nearly 50 years ago, was…
The Greecy pole
When it was suggested last week by a sympathetic BBC interviewer that the Italian government's decision not to fund Rome's bid for the 2020 Olympic Games had cost Italy the chance of taking its place on the world stage, the interviewee retorted sharply "Italy has been on the world stage for 2000 years". Meanwhile, the Greeks keep…
A Greek tragedy – the gods’ revenge
The scene: a windswept precipice at the very edge of Europe overlooking the Aegean Sea. A little man in a business suit stands nervously behind a robust middle-aged woman dressed in what appears, in the failing light, to be a teletubbies jumpsuit. Both are a safe distance from the cliff-face. She is evidently in charge. Two nondescript blacksuited men stand dangerously…
Sorry, wrong number
The first to hit the catwalk at the Miss World Tax beauty contest that spanned year-end was Lady Justice New Zealand with a December 12 landmark tax avoidance decision. Following close on her high-tax heels on December 19 was Lady Justice Canada with an insight into the application of the General Anti-Avoidance Rule and only a day later Lady Justice…
Tax Break 