You have to feel sorry for Wales. The Country’s proud boast that it held the record for the hottest Winter day lasted barely twenty four hours. A staggering 21.2 degrees C. was recorded today at Kew Gardens in London. In old money that’s 70 degrees F.
Talking of money, I was reminded of an old formula today that helps to put into perspective our various personal and national debts. One million seconds is about eleven and a half days. One billion seconds is roughly thirty two years. One trillion seconds is approximately thirty two thousand years. (That’s 32,000!). Multiply that by twenty (640,000ish years) and you’re getting close to the size of America’s National Debt. Those are eye-watering figures. At what point does it all go BANG…..?
With Brexit eating an ever bigger hole in our national and corporate purses I fear our future isn’t so rosy either. Until recently I had to do the much loved and highly anticipated quarterly VAT return. Is there a bigger pain in the posterior in Christendom…..or any other Dom? Our tax regulations are now so complicated the cost of collecting tax must be huge. Every attempt at simplifying them merely seems to add to the burden. (Thanks Gordon.)
The masters of the golfing universe, The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews (R&A) and the United States Golf Association (USGA) have just gone through a four year project of re-writing golf’s arcane and hysterically complex rules with a view to dramatically simplifying them. Not only did golf have a rule book that was thicker than the dunce in Class 6E, but it also had another tome that was as big as a bible (bigger than many) called “The Decisions on the Rules of Golf”. This was an official record of decisions (effectively precedents) that had been taken by the ruling bodies in instances where there had been confusion or ambiguity over a specific ruling and they had been called upon as the final arbiters. The job of a rules referee on the professional Tours requires incredible diplomacy, tact, patience, a firm hand and membership of Mensa.
To we simpletons who merely play the game and have the privilege of commentating on it, the prospect of a significant simplification had us drooling in our gin and tonics. They would rip up the existing rule book and start with a clean slate. Go back to the origins of the game, ten simple rules that everyone could understand; hit it, find it and hit it again. Ha! No such luck. A committee of exceedingly good men, hugely well versed in the Laws and immersed in the playing of the game, tried to be radical. But seemingly, they found that at every attempt at simplification there was an “ah yes, but what if…..?”. The end result then is certainly different and I suspect most would say that some things are definitely better, but overall is there a massive change that validates all the time and energy used up? In my very humble opinion….Nope! Maybe, just maybe, the job should have been given to a small group of men and women who knew nothing about the game at all and came at it with fresh eyes, starting with a blank canvas?
Perhaps they could try the same thought with our tax laws. Get together a group of Einsteins, with no previous knowledge of taxation, give them the basic requirements of raising X amount of money, using the smallest number of people, with the least inconvenience to corporations and citizens alike and see what they come up with. Mmm, there goes another squadron of pigs.
This extraordinary spell of summer in February is about to come to an end. Armageddon will no doubt arrive sooner or later and it may not just be meteorological. Batten down the hatches.
ADayInTheStrifeOf 