Tuesday 22 January 2008

Taxing resources and testing times, Mr Hart-Davis

Yes, I know, I know I didn't blog last week:

(a) Elder son with Science GCSEs and deep-seated aversion to revision. Those of you in the same boat will know exactly what sort of conversations were held and in what tone, and will understand the massive levels of will and determination needed to counteract adolescent inertia.

(b) Trying to book a holiday property in France: yet another instance of how the internet, wonderful resource that it is, is a total black hole swallowing up hours of fruitless clicking from site to site. Overwhelmed with information and possibilities, you end up worried that if you don't click onto that site, that link, you might be missing something better than what you've just found. There's always something better just a click away ... and you look up and find six hours of your life have passed, your neck is irredeemably cricked and you've lost the use of your legs. Two solid weekends I've spent at this and we have found something - but yes, I am worried that there was something better, some perfect beachside blue-shuttered property with cool airy rooms, a superfluity of bathrooms and the ideal pool, with gorgeous views of the Med, with seclusion and calm, yet only two minutes from shops and restaurants, a retreat, a hideaway, yet convenient for the airport ... Holidays are like romantic love: a search for a composite of Willoughby and Colonel Brandon.

(c) Tax. End of January approaching. Need I say more. And note to Mr Adam Hart-Davis: you're a lovely man and I so enjoyed you scurrying about demonstrating what previous generations did for us, and no one can explain a Roman land-surveying system better than you, but you're wrong, Mr Hart-Davis, so wrong, as you trot across the sands of time in that hugely irritating Inland Revenue advert/harassment. Tax does, by its nature, have to be taxing. Bloody taxing.

You may never hear from me again. Remember me kindly.

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