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

It’s been a full day. A messy, busy, scratchy, interrupted day at work with nothing tangible to show for it but 1000’s of spreadsheet cells full of VAT checking stuff. Then back just long enough to eat and out again for a ghost walk round town.

Touring the town streets in the dark, having the history told as an incidental background to ghost stories, was neat. Shrewsbury for instance has three plague pits. I never knew that. Lots of orbs are seen buzzing round the hairdressers built on top of one. 11,000 people lost to the plague. Gosh. And the town walls went through the top of WH Smiths. Bertha hangs around up there, burnt on the wall for being a witch. Then there were the medieval butchers’ hooks still to be seen along the beams on the shops on Butchers Row. Opposite, in the Prince Rupert Hotel there’s a 600 year old staircase a timber pillar of which contains the hollowed shape of a fossilised sea mollusc. The tree grew round the fossil. Gosh again. Room no. 5 had more orbs –from a Dutch Cavalier smoking a cigar and jilted girl who hung herself from a beam. I don’t know about orbs, but the 600 year old wood panelled walls and a ceiling of great thick beams had clear presence and standing in front and under them was definitely a privilege and gosh the third.

And tomorrow, back to VAT returns. One down, two to go. Every quarter, for a week, VAT returns to haunt the office...

Three plague pits?

That ghost walk would make a fascinating () article for the EG

Luckily, the only taxes I have to be concerned with are payroll taxes. You have my deepest sympathy.

An EG about the odder bits of Shrewsbury might be fun to do, some of the ghosts might fit into that.

Wish I could swap Hyp. Or find someone to delegate it to ...there's a thought.

Nov 2, 2012 and another day on VAT returns, finished the 2nd quarter’s this afternoon. When a country gets to the point that its taxes are so complicated that even the citizens, businesses and charities that want to pay the right amount have to employ tax experts, the tax experts whose expertise will also include how to minimise the liability for tax, and who often sell their services on the basis they’ll save you more than they cost you … well that’s the point when tax revenues decline.

Work VAT got so complicated a tax consultant got consulted. Result: reduced admin time, reduced stress, reduced tax. ‘nuff said. It’s time to go out and give the chickens their suppertime corn and currants and see if any of the fluffballs have laid any more eggs. Then an evening on the sofa, in front of the stove, trying S’s filo-pastry experiment and watching Strictly.