Taxidermy: Getting under the skin of a tax lawyer

Like most lawyers, I’m not a big fan of marketing so I recently decided that I needed help from someone who was.

“There are semi-naked women playing beach volleyball in the middle of the Horse Guards Parade immortalised by Canaletto. They are glistening like wet otters and the water is splashing off the brims of the spectators’ sou’westers.” (Boris Johnson)

To celebrate Wiggo’s epic victory in this year’s Tour de France, this month’s blog is devoted to things tax and cycling related.

First, the ‘Cycle to Work’ scheme.

Until I was eleven I was convinced that I was going to be the first woman in space but then Valentina Tereshkova beat me to it on Vostok 6 so I had to change course.  Careers advice was thin on the ground at my school.  No call for it really since we were expected either to become teachers or to work in the local tax office.

Having been confined for what seemed like hours in the Carphone Warehouse outlet in Bluewater shopping centre I panicked, and, as a result, am now sharing my life with an Android.

According to the OED an android is ‘an automaton resembling a human being’.

‘‘I might have known,” said Eeyore. “After all, one can’t complain. I have my friends. Somebody spoke to me only yesterday. And was it last week or the week before that Rabbit bumped into me and said “Bother!”  The Social Round.  Always something going on.” (A. A. Milne, ‘Winnie-the-Pooh’)

There I was again last Wednesday lunchtime, listening to the Budget speech.  A bit of a groundhog moment, really, as nearly everything had been leaked to the press beforehand.  The Chancellor still delivered a few surprises though.

It’s the Budget next month and there’s been quite a lot of speculation that the Chancellor may reduce the top rate of income tax.  The 50% rate was introduced by the last Labour Chancellor from 6th April 2010 for those with incomes of over £150,000 a year.