Screaming at the Television
I tend to get emotional watching athletics on television. Why I don’t know, but it is perhaps that at school it was the one sport I could do with any prowess.
I can remember being got out of bed by my father to watch Derek Ibbotson break the world record for the mile and Seb Coe breaking the 800 metres record in Oslo, but I never saw any of his or Steve Ovett’s wins in the Olympics as we were away both times.
One race stands out in my mind and that was Bruce Tulloh‘s victory in the 5,000 metres in the European Championships in Belgrade in 1962. I think my parents must have been away, as I was alone in the house in Cockfosters. I screamed and screamed the tiny Tulloh home.
Today, I was also alone as I wqtched Mo Farah win the 10,000 metres in another European Championships in Barcelona. I screamed again and this time, he didn’t just win, but had another Briton, Chris Thompson in second.
I am really looking forward to the London Olympics.
After tonight, I feel a bit better!
Will The Last Member To Leave Please Turn Out The Lights!
There is a touch of sadness about the closure of Trimdon Labour Club in Tony Blair’s old constituency of Sedgefield. But it is a pattern that is being followed all over the country, as clubs;political or otherwise fall on hard times.
So why do I say there is a touch of sadness? Some people, mainly of a certain generation, will mourn the loss of a quiet place for a drink, where theyt can talk about their leeks and whippets and moan about the government. Most will not as the club, and especially those that were run by and for men, have had a good run and their time is now past. And there are better and more exciting places to spend an evening.
My father used to go down the Conservative Club at the end of the road and always left my mother at home. To most couples these days that is just not how you behave, as there is so much more to do!
So in truth, as another club throws in the towel, it probably means that a whole group of people have already found a better life.
I’m very Marxist (Groucho tendency) on clubs, in that I wouldn’t join any that would accept me as a member!
Why I Don’t Like Paper Blowing About!
Over the last few weeks, we have had it very hot some days and various people felt it was a good idea to open the kitchen door to the garden. I don’t like it, as it tends to blow the odd bits of paper, such as newspapers, shopping lists and part-finished Sudoku that were lying about, all over the place! So now it’s colder, I’m glad to get the door shut again.
I was thinking about this a couple of nights ago.
As regular readers will know, my father was a letterpress printer. Just as photocopiers do it sometimes, printing machines in those days were liable to monumental paper jams. These were much more serious with those machines, as in bad cases they actually damaged the lead type. Paper often went everywhere propelled by the feed mechanisms. They were a time-consuming and dirty thing to sort out. I didn’t do that much machine minding, as he thought that a bit dangerous for a vhild, but say on Sunday mornings, when we were working in Wood Green, I would be called in, if the Thompson had had a major jam.
So perhaps all of that panic and flying paper has left a mark on my mind, and it is better to not let the paper start blowing about.
I don’t like draughts either and abhor the habit some people have of opening windows to let the air through. If I want fresh air, I’ll go out and get it!
Memories of Childhood
I’ve said before that I spent a lot of time as a child in my father’s print works in Wood Green. I used to set all of the handbills for the Dunlop tennis tournaments held all round the UK. But my father did other jobs for Dunlop including their industrial gloves catalogues. These were uprated and reprinted each year and as I got more older and more literate, he sometimes asked me to proof read them. They had gloves for all different purposes.
Last night as I was cooking, I felt that an appropriate glove on my left hand might help. It would offer protection from say a knife, when you were cutting something, a sure grip when you picked something up and as I cook using an AGA, which has lots of hot bits, perhaps it would be insulated.
I can’t be sure, but I think Dunlop had a lightweight industrial glove all those years ago!
But something like that would certainly help!
The Left-Handed Blood Test
As my left arm is the one affected by the stroke and because it was also broken in a bullying incident at school, I generally as for blood tests to be taken from my stronger right arm. Today, Today, I had my weekly Warfarin blood test in the West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St. Edmunds because I was going to Felixstowe and it was more convenient being on the route I would take.
Today though the blood was taken by a nurse who was left-handed. She took it from my right arm as normal and it was very pain-free. Not that I find having blood taken at all troublesome. Because she was the wrong way round did it help?
But I just wonder, if we never think how we take a blood test! But also I might be lucky, in that they never seem to hurt and all I have to show for them a few hours later is a tiny spot. C on the other hand, feared them and had tremendous trouble taking a test.
But it has to be said that some jobs may be better done, by someone who is left or right-handed. For years, my father said that to be a compositor, or someone who sets letterpress type, you had to do it right-handed. But then he hired a temporary comp, who was left-handed. There was nothing wrong with his work at all, but he was just a bit ungainly to my father’s experienced eye.
Value Added Tax
There is talk of value-added tax being raised in the budget today. I feel that a rise to bring us more in line with the higher rates in Europe would not be something that caused too much pain, as most VAT consumers pay is on things like electronic goods, that are imported anyway. Perhaps we need a higher rate on things like that and perhaps a 15% rate on services, such as building work!
VAT to me is a good tax, as the system it replaced, purchase tax, ruined my father’s printing business. In the 1950s, printing work had two rates. On something like an invoice form or a letterhead, that had been printed and you could write on, my Dunlop handbills for their tennis tournaments all over the UK, the tax rate was zero, because it was not designed to be written on. Incidentally, the tax on plain paper was zero. This anomally lives on in that we don’t charge VAT on newspapers and magazines. Why not? A tax on OK, Hello et al would probably mean people read something more intelligent.
The outcome of this crazy tax regime was that more and more large businesses set up their own printing departments, buying plain paper and then using the new offset-litho techniques to create perfect copies of the originals created by craft letterpress printers like my father.
When my father had started up again after the Second World War, there were upwards of forty small printers in the old London borough of Wood Green. When he sold up in the mid-1960s there were just two.
So not having a fair tax system cost hundreds of jobs.
Newcastle Do Apostrophes Different
St. James’ Park, the home of Newcastle United, and St. James’s Park in London spell it differently.
Why?
It was things like that, that used to annoy my father, as everyone had different views on spelling, apostrophes and plurals.
Let’s Abolish All Taxes Except One
This article in The Times by Kit Malthouse will get massive hoots of derision. But I think the principle behind it is right.
These are two early paragraphs.
So if all taxes, including VAT, form part of the price of the stuff we buy, why do we bother to charge and collect them separately? What would happen if we were to lump everything together, phase out all taxes and just charge higher VAT? Well, several things.
First, everyone would receive their income gross. No more PAYE or self-assessment and, of course, no further need for the Inland Revenue. All that money and all those people currently wasted on arguing about the dozens of different taxes would be redeployed. Billions of pounds and thousands of people, tax collectors (£5 billion) and accountants (at least another £5 billion) liberated for investment and production. Tax would be collected painlessly in small increments if and when you buy stuff.
Years ago, my accountant at the time was a Labour supporter. But he applauded Mrs. Thatcher in the way she stopped tax loopholes on the one hand and reduced rates on the other. The result was more tax collected and lots of out-of-work accountants, who then went on to develop more productive skills in areas like budgeting and planning, which created jobs.
The trouble too with our current taxation system, is that it creates anomalies. The honest get penalised by those who cheat, so good companies and individuals cease trading. They also give up because of the fact they spend too much time on working out tax.
I have a personal interest in tax anomalies. They ruined my father’s business. In the 1950s the purchase tax on print and stationery was about 40%, whereas that on plain paper was zero. Brochures and other things you didn’t write on were also zero-rated. So as this was at a time when the new offset litho technology was being introduced, companies who needed printing done setup departments to do their own. A lot of printers went bust, but if VAT had been in operation then, it would have been a level playing field and the best would have survived.
This would apply with the proposals in the article.
So I’d give a couple of cheers for Kit Malthouse.
In addition, I would of course raise the taxes on energy, so that we reduced our carbon footprint.
After a dinner of some very nice pasta, I’ve had more thoughts about this.
Supposing that it was linked to a system similar to I proposed in Cutting Unemployment. All you’d need to do was deduct the VAT on your services and that was it. It gets simpler and simpler.
But there is the problem about how you would account for those who didn’t charge VAT on their services. I’m sure that one of the accountants made redundant by abolishing all of those taxes would know the solution.
Banning Smoking in Cars
Yes!
I remember my father who used to fill his pipe whilst driving. He used to steer with his knees. It was downright dangerous and I still regularly see people driving and rolling a fag at the same time.
I can’t understand why anybody smokes in the first place. But then I can’t understand why people take drugs either!
Life is difficult enough in the first place, without ruining your health.
The Battle of Bolton
Yesterday, what happened in Bolton was not the way to protest.
You could argue that on the one hand it was a protest very similar to the Battle of Cable Street, where East London was determined to stop a march by the British Union of Fascists. My father, a left-wing Tory, was at that battle in 1936 and his view was that it was all of the East End against a rather nasty group with connections to Hitler. It could not be argued then, that we didn’t know of the ambitions and awful nastiness of the German dictator.
You could also argue that on the other, there are strong fears about such things like Sharia law and militant Islam.
I was listening to Radio 5 last night and the two sides had an argument with the presenter, as they thought they’d been duped into talking to each other by the BBC.
That probably shows more about the groups than anything else. They wanted a fight and that is what they got. But it was mainly with the police, who as ever were stuck in the middle. They should have let both of these groups get on with what they wanted to do. Preferably, in a place where they couldn’t do any damage to anybody else.
Those on both sides of the argument should talk to make sure that nothing like this happens again.
The Anonymous Widower 