Ashes to ashes
While chuckling over my melon and banana this morning as I read the report of England’s predictably woeful batting collapse in Australia, a piece of profundity came to me. ‘Now wait for the press reaction,’ I muttered to myself.
There is nothing so furious as the English media when its collective nose is rubbed in the truth, that its expectation of superiority over the rest of the world is generally misplaced.
Stamp it out
I’ve just read that in the calendar month of October, people buying homes paid the Exchequer a total of £852,000,000 in Stamp Duty. Annualised, that works out at over £10 billion a year; total revenue for the current fiscal year won’t hit that but a figure of £8.5 billion is expected. I don’t know about you but that’s a staggering sum to me, money seized by the Treasury from British families for the privilege of putting a roof over their heads.
What is Stamp Duty? Actually the full title is Stamp Duty Land Tax, but the Government tend to leave out the last two words, probably for fear of stirring up public protest. It has a slab structure, with rates applied rigidly to price bands. For example if you buy a house for £250,000, you will have to give nice Mr Osborne £2500, 1% of the price. But if you pay £250,001, the greedy bastard will grab a few pence over £7500, that being 3%. Property transactions below £125,000 are exempt, but house buyers in that bracket are still required to report the transaction to HMRC within four weeks. Failure to comply may lead to a fine and will prevent the sale being recorded in the land register.
From 2015, there will be changes to the regime in Scotland. The threshold will rise to £180,000, above the current average Scottish house price, and the slab principle will be abolished. That’s fine as far as it goes, but the principle will remain, that people must pay the government for their legitimate aspirations. To me that’s plain wrong, so why the hell do we put up with it?
Fund-raising mutton-chops
I’m joining in the spirit of Mo-vember. I haven’t worn whiskers for over 15 years, but this year I decided to give it a go. The project is now sufficiently advanced for me to go on the hunt for sponsors. This is my Just Giving page, in aid of Marie Curie, a worthy cause.
https://www.justgiving.com/Quintin-Jardine
No pressure . . . well, not much.
Doubtful?
This is from the Church of Scotland website.
Click to access carradale_manse_argyll.pdf
Read it carefully and you will note that drainage is by ‘sceptic tank’. I find myself wondering:- Are sceptic tanks for disposing of non-believers?
Short term thinking
QJ’s definition of a pessimist: A person who won’t buy green bananas.
Cap d’Any
http://www.hostalempuries.com/en/environmentally-friendly-hostel-in-costa-brava/new-years-eve-2013
If you happen to be in the L’Escala area on December 31, you could do worse than this.
Bad timing
I read yesterday that the Australian rugby management has suspended five players for the game against Scotland for the unpatriotic sin of drinking ‘inappropriate levels of alcohol’ after a team dinner. And here was I thinking that was the National Pastime.
This offence occurred, apparently in the middle of last week, and that begs a question. Why are the guys involved being disciplined only now? Why were they allowed to play against Ireland last Saturday, a few days after they went out on the piss? People have paid already to watch next weekend’s Murrayfield encounter, and now they know they’re going to be short-changed.
Language!
Thanks to my Vancouver buddy Lionel for sending me this entertaining link.
Gone
I have a stack of DVD and BluRay movies on my shelves waiting to be watched. Some have been there for years. Last night we finally got round, seven years late, to Martin Scorsese’s ‘The Departed‘. We watched it in silence; when it was over, Eileen said one word. ‘Wow!’ That’s all the review it needs.
Living the role
Poirot’s farewell last week was predictably sad. I don’t remember Hercule dying on the page in the book,but TV handled it well. The ‘Being Poirot’ documentary that followed was interesting and enlightening. The off-set shots showed very clearly that when David Suchet was dressed and made up as Poirot, he was Poirot, right down to the accent and the walk.
Loathing
Some TV ads, I just hate, instinctively. Top of my list at the moment is that Network Rail commercial, the one where the brat kills his sister. And they keep showing it, over and over again.
Halsey time
This has been my week for football books.
Mark Halsey has been one of my favourite English referees for several years, and I am not a natural fan of that profession. He has always struck me as positive in his attitude to the game, and as a man who realises that a set-up that preaches RESPECT, in great big capital letters, should be prepared to show that to players as well as demanding it from them. He retired from the game at the end of last season, after a career interrupted by a successful battle against cancer, and has now published his autobiography, ‘Added Time’. His book makes it pretty clear that his sympathetic attitude to the game did not endear him to the regime which is currently in charge of English match officials. There are two sides to every argument, but the fact that the publisher (no names, no pack drill) who commissioned the book declined subsequently to publish it, indicates that a certain amount of leaning may have gone on. (Nothing new about that in publishing, by the way, as a friend of mine could tell you.)
In the end, Mark and his co-writer took the considerable gamble of publishing it independently. They won, for it has become a sports best-seller, and quite right too. He comes across as a bitter man, and hits all his targets. At the same time he is generous in his praise, and the book does shed light on the world of the people who control football matches and the extent to which they are themselves controlled. There are always two sides to every yarn, but the very idea that his former employers did their best to silence him makes me lean towards his version.
One small criticism which readers should note. In his list of favourite pre-match music, Mark lists a track by Bobby McFerrin, ‘Don’t worry, be happy’ and refers sadly to the singer’s suicide. Fact is, Bobby McF is still among us; the suicide thing was an internet rumour that was debunked years ago.
Marker
Every day I receive an email that tells me how the £ is doing agains the €. For the last year or so it has moved only marginally, but this week’s unemployment figures have pushed it quite significantly in Sterling’s favour. A cheaper Euro will be good news for a couple of million ex-pats, but not so good for the Leader of the Opposition, as it is a reasonable indicator that the present government, for all its imperfections and internal backbiting, is actually getting things right.
Stairway to heaven
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-24933090
This is okay for you, pal, but I don’t have any.
Welcome home
I’m pleased to see that Laura Kuenssberg is coming back to the BBC, as chief correspondent and presenter of Newsnight, where she will be a welcome counter to the caricature that Jeremy Paxman has become. (Isn’t it odd that both of the BBC’s famous Jeremys are large arrogant bullies?) I have a feeling that Ms Kuenssberg won’t stop there. Nick Robinson had better look to his laurels.
Boom Boom
Whether you like or loathe boxing, this is a sobering piece.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24919484
Madness
Just finished Keith Gillespie’s book ‘How NOT to become a football millionaire’. A cautionary tale and a good read; also, a lads’ bible.
Ho ho ho
Six weeks to Christmas but the freezer’s full already!
Taking liberties with geography
Late home last night, so I only just caught up with the end of the excellent The Escape Artist on BBC1. I can be hard to fool, but I had did not spot that plot twist coming, not for one second.
I have only two small queries. The first: why did the producers find it necessary to move the Kielder Forest into Scotland? The second: having established that Will’s hideaway cottage was on the East Lothian coastline with a clear view of the Bass Rock, why did they change the name of the station from which he caught the train from Dunbar (which it was) to Berwick-upon-Tweed (which it wasn’t)?
