How very very true....

A father walks into a restaurant with his young son..
He gives the young boy three 10p coins to play with to keep him occupied.

Suddenly, the boy starts choking and going blue in the face....
The father realises the boy has swallowed the coins and starts slapping him
on the back..
The boy coughs up 2 of the 10p's but is still choking.
Looking at his son, the father is panicking, shouting for help.

A well dressed, attractive, and serious looking woman, in a blue business
suit is sitting at a coffee bar reading a newspaper and sipping a cup of
coffee.

At the sound of the commotion, she looks up, puts her coffee cup down,
neatly folds the newspaper, places it on the counter, gets up from her seat
and
makes her way, unhurried, across the restaurant.

Reaching the boy, the woman carefully pulls down his pants; takes hold of
the boy's' testicles and
starts to squeeze and twist, gently at first and then ever so firmly..
tighter and tighter !!!
After a few seconds the boy convulses violently and coughs
up the last of the 10p's, which the woman deftly catches in her free hand.

Releasing the boy's testicles, the woman hands the coin to the father and
walks back to her seat at the coffee bar without saying a word.

As soon as he is sure that his son has suffered no ill effects, the father
rushes over
to the woman and starts thanking her saying, "I've never seen anybody do
anything like that before, it was fantastic. Are you a doctor? "
'No,' the woman replied. I'm with the Inland Revenue..'

My way of life is fallen into the sere...*

As I edge slowly closer to the day when all the tax I've paid over the years starts to get paid back to me ( that's the OAP pension by the way - and is itself taxed) I am beginning to realise that I have lived my entire life without realising quite how pernicious and intrusive this Government is.
It all kicked off when I claimed my winter fuel allowance.
Then my bus pass.
That triggered visits from council officials, entailed visits to doctors, tests on my perfectly healthy body ( its like the police - trap unsuspecting illegal parkers and let the thieves and drug dealers go free) - and forms.
I have now lost count of how many forms I have had to fill in, just to make sure the Government doesn't strike me off it's list of future dependants.
The idea is quite simple. They send a form, and at the bottom it says ( in small letters, natch) words to the effect of " If you don't send this back timeously ( is that 14 days? 7 days? A month?) you will lose your entitlement to xyz until you fill in another form asking for us to be very kind and send you a new form like this one again - oh, and its not back-dated."
I've just had to fill in a form to confirm my tax code.
Now bear in mind it's not me who sets the code - the Government sends out a form every now and then which has the code on it. I effectively have little or no input, and the code is the one applied to my tax affairs until they change it.
Even so, the form stipulates that I need to tell them what my tax code is and failure to do so blah blah blah.
It also has my tax reference and NI number on it, and my date of birth, all of which I have to write in as well.
Why?
I have no idea - apart from the Government employing bodies to send the forms out, and presumably check them before filing them away.
But I'm absolutely sure I'm not going to lose one penny of what I'm entitled to.
I have to go now as the post has arrived - with yet another form to confirm I'm still alive and they do have to pay the winter fuel allowance...
*... into the yellow leaf ( Macbeth)
PS
At least it gives me something to do whilst waiting for the "upturn" we are assured is... er well er....well, the upturn.

Higher Debt?

I received a letter today from the taxman, telling me I owed them £511 and a further £351.
I'm by no means convinced I do ( nor is my accountant) but what I did rather like was that the letter was signed ( yes with a pen) by a person who has as their title " Higher Debt Manager"
If £862 really is a higher debt at the moment, we really are all screwed.

La La Land

I've now managed to read up about Alistair Darling's PBR of yesterday, and I can only say I'm staggered.
Not only is he actually taking more tax back than he is giving away, he has blatantly gone back to the old Labour orthodoxy of taxing the rich. It didn't work then and it won't work now.
I would expect droves of wealth creators in the UK to leave. I really do. I can't imagine why anyone would want to come to the UK to set up a business. Our inward investment will dry up and with it the value of the pound.
And the recession more than half way through? Don't make me laugh.
PS
I just spotted the following on FT.com:
The bond markets will ultimately decide whether these new rules are credible or whether sterling will come under fresh pressure. There were some initial signs of concern in bond markets and it is now cheaper to insure Unilever’s debt against default than the UK government.
Did you understand that? Unilever is more credit worthy than the British Government.
God help us all.

Anything that makes life worth living is going up!

I may have got this wrong, but according to some very rough calculations I made from a text I got, the headlines in the papers should be:
Your pint up 25p.
Bottle of wine up 16p.
Fags up 8p.
I doubt it'll happen. The narrative the media are intent on runs completely counter to these facts.
I assume condoms will be cheaper as he hasn't announced a tax on them and presumably the VAT will come off.
Willing to bet none of the shops changes any prices down.
I may have misunderstood though....