h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Oh, what a lovely tax return covered in Typex, scribbled out numbers and complex multiplication. If you subtract a negative number from a negative number what do you get? Never thought I'd have to ask myself that in a hurry, desperate to get the tax form in before I get charged £100 by a bunch of cartoon accountants masquarading as the tax men.

Ant then there are those endless sections with no relevance to me at all. Notation tax, blind dog allowance, allowances for people earning over £3million - are they mad? I earnt last year, if you ignore the money from Australia, just under £4,000. This, I was pretty sure, was under the tax-free allowance. So I knew I didn't owe tax. But did this mean I had to spend four hours, admittedly infront of a TV blaring out Jodie Foster's Contact, struggling with sums I hadn't done since Math's AO level. And I didn't have my calculator - that was at work being used to work out the speed and availability of over 130 ISPs. In the end, I had to resort to using my computer's calc, which, for some unknown reason, is appalingly hard to use and has the minimum number of functions required to be called a calculator. My ex-school calculator, currently in the office, has buttons that tell you the number of carbon atoms in 12g of the stuff, but the most complicated thing my PC's can do is work out a percentage. And this 'calculator' is backed a 300MHz Pentium III with 60 Mb of RAM and 124 Mb of ROM. You'd think it'd run rings round a small plastic bit of kit that runs of solar power and the has GMA Typexed all over it.

Well, now the return is done. Painful, yet necessary and why is it lovely? Well, old master cartoon bloke owes me, yes, owes me, the princely sum of £114.90. Almost enough to buy a round of drinks in some of the swankier bars I never go in to because a round of drinks would cost over 100 quid. But still, once I'd got my cheque, I could, if I chose, wander into El Atlantic bar, rub the odd shoulder or two of the local Q-list celebs and order several incredibly flash, revolting Baileys-based cocktails and then afford to tip the bloke in the toilets who's sole job is to make toilet-goers feel sorry for him 90p for a quick spray of Dissapointment by Yves San le bloke. Off course I won't do anything like that. My tax return will probably be sent back, covered in red crosses indicating that I owe them the £114.90 and they want it now. Or else I'll be sent to the Tax man's equivalent of the head's office for quick ruler across my knuckles and a £100 pound fine for being cheeky. And there I was thinking I'd grown out of that kind of thing.