‘So long and thanks for all the fish’ (Douglas Adams)

EU and British flag on pole

I studied the law of international and European institutions at University.  It was 1973 and the UK had just joined the European Community (as it then was).  I was a committed European and, after I graduated, I hot-footed it to Brussels for a six-month placement with the European Commission.

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Over the moon

Miss Piggy and Kermit

‘’Pet’, the international sheeperstar and online sensation from Lochside Ullapool, has emphatically denied that her new found celebrity status will change her in any way.

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Moving on

Characters from Thunderbords TV programme

It’s going to be a short blog post this month as I am absolutely knackered.  The combination of moving house and rampant insomnia has brought dark clouds to my normally sunny disposition  In the move I’ve lost the glass top to my Daum inkwell as well as six coffee cups and saucers with picture of human vital organs on them (a present from a Dutch friend who is an ENT surgeon).  And I’ve broken my favourite teapot.

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Farmer George

Ceramic duck outside house

The snappily-titled ‘higher rates of SDLT on purchases of additional residential properties where the consideration is over £40,000’ come in on 1 April and it seems that a lot of people are going to be caught by George’s little SDLT prank.

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I am connected

Image depicting gangsters from the 1930s

“Leave the gun.  Take the cannoli.” (Peter Clemenza in ‘The Godfather’)

I was uneasy about using social media.  Not as uneasy as Tony Soprano was about his first appointment with Dr Melfi, but uneasy.

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Pantomime Dame

Aladdin with genie

No New Year’s Honour for me, unlike Lin Homer the HMRC chief executive who got a DCB (Dame Commander of the Order of the Bath) for public service ‘particularly in public finance.’ This was in spite of the fact that HMRC were on the naughty step for nearly the whole of 2015.

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