Tax and spend…

Last year, the Inland Revenue sent me a simplified tax form, just a folded A3 sheet, rather than the full self-assessment deal. And when I sent that in and they owed me some money, they said this year that they wouldn't send a tax return.

Actually they did — but this time it's just one piece of A4 with the non-PAYE boxes that I fill in (Gift Aid, pension, investments, that sort of thing). In other words all the bits that require hunting through the various account statements that a full tax return takes, just less paper.

At least I don't have to wait for my P11D this time.

Milestones

Went over the 7000 mile mark at the spot where I wrote off the previous car, on the way home from work.

Not so surprising…

Your Inner European is Dutch!

Open minded and tolerant.
You're up for just about anything.

Who's Your Inner European?

Nature Notes

There was a swan nesting on the backs, in the ditch on the other side of the river from Kings' when I was walking past on the way to the cinema.

Film — The Edukators

A piece of modern-day German social commentary, angsting about what became of the spirit of '68, mixed with a generous dose of Jules et Jim.

The film follows a German equivalent of the Merry Pranksters, who end up inadvertently having to abduct one of their victims, now a rich executive, previously a 60's revolutionary. One of his lines raised the a general ripple of laughter from the mainly middle aged and older audience, especially given the current state of politics "One day you go into the polling booth, and find yourself voting conservative."

Not deep, but interesting none the less.

Wells got it right...

It looks like we are really developing into Eloi and Morlocks.

An unexpected result

This test looks like puts as much weight on minor things like fox-hunting as it does on significant economic issues. Alas, the socially liberal parties are the economically illiterate, and vice-versa.

Who should I vote for?

Your expected outcome:

Liberal Democrat

Your actual outcome:

Labour -32
Conservative -2
	Liberal Democrat 31
	UK Independence Party 35
	Green 51

You should vote: Green

The Green Party, which is of course strong on environmental issues, takes a strong position on welfare issues, but was firmly against the war in Iraq. Other key concerns are cannabis, where the party takes a liberal line, and fox-hunting, which unsurprisingly the Greens are firmly against.

Take the test at Who Should You Vote For

Times change

The old (15+ years) garden table (softwood picnic table with fold-up seats) finally succumbed to rot over the winter, as we discovered today when trying to sit on one of the benches. And fashions have changed so much that at the garden centre, there is nothing but posh tables with separate chairs.

What a week

Well, we've seen the triumph of Popery, in that the heir to the throne re-arranged his affairs on account of the Bishop of Rome. Though this seems to have passed some people by — at morning cakes today one of my colleagues wandered towards the table with the papers on saying “What's happening in the world today…” What with the funeral for a Pope and UK manufacturing one gets 1970's acid flashbacks…

And then the election. We have the National Socialist British Workers' Party … I'm sorry, that should read New Labour (who are presiding over the victory of the fundamentalist terrorists and of Popery); the Tories (a bunch of bandits like the name originally meant) trying to flank them on the right, and getting squeezed by UKIP (the Daily Mail party). And then we have the nice-guys in the LibDems, who are socially liberal, and would be OK if they let the Orange Book crowd take charge so they were economically liberal too, and not economically illiterate and supine in the face of Franco-German dirigisme.

I guess in four weeks time, I will have held my nose and voted LibDem — though it means nothing as the constituency is, to first approximation, 25% Lab, 25% Lib and 50% Andrew Lansley. (Actual figures 24%/27%/44%.)

[Now playing - Planet Rock]

Film — Downfall

The story of Hitler's secretary, and the Nazi High Command, late April, 1945; filmed in German, by Germans.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

Who is mad and who is sane in that world turned upside-down?

Not a walk in the park. One of the most harrowing movies I've sat through.

Highly recommended.

Garden goes mad

Spent much of the day gardening. The Forsythia burst into bloom when I wasn't watching; and now buds are starting to burst on cherry and plum. Though I cut it on Friday, the grass looks like it needs another go. The weeds have grown like it was May.

At least the evenings are long, now.

The other sign of spring - dawn chorus, all week. And I have to stop waking at dawn.

Dialog of the deaf

For a long while now we've been on the telemarketer do-not-call list. This does not stop war-dialling spammers with their robots.

When we got back from the theatre, we found that one such had had a very long (and one-sided) conversation with our equally robotic answering machine.

On a lighter note — I spotted a mouse running across Silver Street while driving home.

Play — Dracula, a tale of undying love

I am in the chat room
I am crawling the web, searching for you,
My search engine is tracing you.
Where is your domain?

Thus, the ominous East-European voice of the Count greeted the audience as they took their seats for the World Premiere run of the new adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, by Bryony Lavery.

I confess to having listened to that intro with some qualms — but they proved ill founded. Using e-mail and texts (shown on a large screen built into the imaginative set), it recaptured the epistolatory style of the original in a hip and now setting; and only occasionally veered into ironic self-reference.

It was a very faithful rendition of the text, albeit abridged (cutting out the Count's real-estate deals in London), more so than other more period takes from recent years. I especially enjoyed the updating of the "Bloofer Lady" to the "Buffy Lady" — cute, and not too knowing.

Highly recommended. Catch it at the West End if you can't do it this week!

Nature notes

Looking out of the window this morning, there were starlings gleaning seed scattered from the bird feeder in the plum tree; and the first signs of buds breaking. In the road, two cock-robins faced off against each other, while a wren foraged in the flowerbed, and a hen blackbird scavenged nesting materials.

Out back, the water-lily pot submerged in the pond was heaped deeply with spawn. Maybe, being late, and with recent rain to freshen the pond, some of it might hatch, this year.

Fetching the cats back from their holiday, it was Bleys who sang all the way, just as on the way out. Perhaps he doesn't like riding in the front seat, separated from the others on the parcel shelf.

Easter Hols

Took the Easter week-end as a few days off-net to veg out in Bourton-on-the-Water. The drive down on Friday was smooth, with no sign of any Bank Holiday jams; and Bourton itself is a very pretty - if busy - village.

The weather was warm on Friday, just nice for a little amble around in the afternoon, scoping the place out. The main limitation turned out to be that most places serving food were tea-rooms, and shut sometime not too long after 5pm, so we ended up having a Chinese at the one accessible evening eatery.

Saturday started warm, and we went to Birdland, an aviary , and took pictures until the camera ran out of power. The afternoon was cooler, and with fewer throngs of people, we were able to get in to have high tea at the Croft restaurant, before returning to the hotel to watch the first episode of the new Dr. Who.

That was quite brill — it packed into the double-length episode the content of a traditional 4-parter, Eccleston played the part with the humour he's shown elsewhere (e.g. as Vendici in Revenger's Tragedy), and it was almost enough to say it might be worth getting a TV - if only we hadn't seen the utter tripe that was on beforehand.

Sunday was cold, with a raw wind. I went for a walk, spotting many pressed frogs (like pressed flowers, only less aesthetic) on the road, for about 3 hours, then we took in a late lunch and read books for afternoon and evening.

Monday, back to Birdland again, enjoying another burst of sun, and then more walking around, just enjoying the hints of spring, before driving home today in the cold and dank.