February 24-March 1, 2024
SATURDAY 24 Today’s Substack from Jonty Bloom poses an interesting question for national economies…
Where does a Brit with an Irish passport, living in Portugal, working on a computer server in Norway owned by a German company, making a website in America for a Canadian games maker and paid by the company’s Luxembourg office, actually need to pay their taxes?
The answer is that no one knows. He goes on to say that rich people are accomplished game-players in the tax jurisdiction racket, but anyone doing it accidentally or purely by circumstance will eventually be traced and forced to pay up.
📌 My wife “lost” me twice today in Winchester. Once in TK Maxx and again in the Oxfam book shop. It’s always my fault. She eventually found me in TK Maxx studying luggage; in the Oxfam bookshop I was mulling over a vintage Dorothy L Sayers, which originally cost 5 shillings new but now costs £3.99.
SUNDAY 25 in the New Statesman Andrew Marr describes Keir Starmer’s hair as “stiffly disciplined”.
📌 Linda McCartney’s vegetarian meatballs in an Ottolenghi ragu are more than nice. And our enjoyment of them gave my wife the chance to once again complain noisily that restaurants generally have defaulted on the “vegan option” as their non-meat choice. My wife loves a vegetarian cheeseburger, but not a vegan one with fake cheese.
MONDAY 26 A Liverpool team of youngsters beat Chelsea in the Carabao Cup final yesterday with a single goal in the last minute of extra time.
TUESDAY 27 On a free trip to the Tower of London (normal price £37) we were staggered at the size of the ravens. The legend is that if the ravens fly away, the Tower will crumble and fall. There is no chance of that because not only do the King’s workers clip their wings to inhibit flying but feed them enough to inflate them to the size of a dog. The twice-a-day Raven Diet includes “chicks, rats and mice. Once a week they enjoy a boiled egg, plus the occasional rabbit, which is given to them whole because the fur and bones are good for them.”
📌 Jonty Bloom says young people have no interest in joining the armed forces not because they are spineless snowflakes but because the pay and conditions are rubbish.
WEDNESDAY 28 Full Fact says every time they find a bare-faced lie uttered by a politician they write to them asking them to correct the statement immediately. So far this year none of the 15 people they’ve caught at it has done so. Every day Full Fact adds to its compendium of lies. One recently told of a circulating image of Keir Starmer’s sat next to serial sex offender Jimmy Savile. The picture, says Full Fact, is a fake, in which Savile’s head has been grafted onto the body of someone else. That someone, they say, is Gordon Brown.
📌 I have this image of Jonty Bloom waking up early every morning in a state of agitation. Before he can even wash and eat breakfast he has already spat out the bile that is bothering him. Today it is privatisation and the example of Thames Water, which has been ripping off the British taxpayer for far too long.
📌 Got a message from the Barbican CEO Claire to say they’ve appointed a new artistic director, and not surprisingly it isn’t either of the two wildly creative balls of energy I favoured after interviewing them a month ago. I think the Barbican still likes to think of itself as a prestigious international arts institution whereas I see it as a national cultural heritage site that includes the arts.
📌 At tonight’s resident’s meeting a stooge reporting to the Council faced questions about their intentions to replace the City footfall that disappeared with the Pandemic. The project has a name, “Destination City”, and the intention is to make the City an exciting “offer” for visitors. But the packed room believed that the best way to increase footfall and business opportunities in the City of London is for more people to live there. The half-million people who work in the City leave it every night and spend their money elsewhere. Those left behind (ie, residents) are a marginalised community in a weird commercial compromise with a medieval oligarchy (the City of London Corporation) and get no great “offer” at all. We’re lucky if the pubs are still open after 10pm.
THURSDAY 29 A message from our GP surgery says they are branching out into community work, which seems sensible given the number of people who book to see a doctor when all they want to do is talk to someone. So from now on, the “Together Better” project will organise walks, arts & crafts sessions and coffee mornings.
📌 I think Michelle got quite excited when we spoke to Paula, who runs the Old Street Digital Canvas. They’ve asked if I’d like to join the panel that selects the artworks that go on display. I think I will say yes. And I think Michelle would secretly like to take over the site for Submit to Love artists.
📌 It was a day of team photos. At Headway I posed with Sam and Michelle for a publicity shot to go with our upcoming presentation at the Art Workers’ Guild. Then in the evening at Leggy’s leaving drink I gathered around some old Guardian colleagues. I was surprised so many remembered me.
FRIDAY 1 George Galloway won the Rochdale by-election standing for the Workers Party of Britain, whose website takes so long to load you can click on it, go away and make a cup of tea then return to find multiple pictures of George in assorted brimmed hats. Get used to those hats. Galloway is back and you have to admire his determination to be a thorn in the side of politicians from every party other than his own. I’m not sure his party has any politicians other than him, but George is acting as if it does. George is acting as if British politics changed overnight and it was all his doing. I like the idea of George as Disruptor in Chief and I like the idea of all mainstream politicians feeling permanently disrupted. I don’t imagine the people of Rochdale will benefit very much from this state of affairs.
📌 Facebook reminds me that five years ago I made a self-portrait.
Read all of my scrapbook diaries…
PLEASE MESSAGE WITH ANY CORRECTIONS, BIG OR SMALL.
Billy's Scrapbook 
The very rich do not pay taxes and the middle class are harassed when there is delay in filing their tax returns. I was imagining stiffly disciplined hair 🙂 About the ravens what humans do to other animals and to humans is a tragedy. It was good to see the photos. Thank you for this post.
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