Last week, the 26th March to be precise, I contacted the Inland Revenue over their mistake where they are demanding £4.17 from me in interest on a late payment, which was late because they sent my details to the wrong address. They have admitted their mistake and have rescinded the fine they placed upon me, however they still seem to want the outrageous sum of £4.17 in interest, on their mistake.

I was told by some jobsworth that £4.17 was beyond his powers and that it would have to be passed to a higher authority, who would contact me within 3 days.

It’s now April 1st.

Naturally I have heard nothing. How much of the tax payers money, our money, must we spend in wages on these idiots just to clear up the issue over £4.17? Is all of this really necessary?

I despair at the state of this country, how the bureaucracy of institutions such as the Inland Revenue is so full of itself that it takes numerous phone calls, countless man hours and several different people just to rectify a mistake to the tune of £4.17.

No wonder this country is falling apart.

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Everyone who knows me knows what a caring, sensitive soul I am. I’m all for charities and stuff, such as Cancer against Christians, yet I do take issue when someone’s a bit stingy with the meat.

For example, I was at the Leigh Arms last week for lunch and used their carvery. The chef asked whether I wanted turkey or beef, and naturally I said both (as any hungry chap would) and the git carved the thinest, tiniest slice of turkey I had ever seen, then equaled his skills with the blade when he cut me a sample of beef.

What am I, Kate Moss?

So, I was forced to make up for the lack of sustenance on my plate when it came to helping myself to the vegetables. I piled the plate higher than many thought physically possible, with more food than any one person could hope to eat.

Obviously, I didn’t finish it. In truth I barely made a dent and it took me a while to burrow down far enough to even find the meat.

This prompted many people to comment how I wasn’t thinking about World hunger, starving children in Africa and all that bollocks. Well yes, while I’m sure the food on my plate, and indeed the food I wasted, would have fed a family of nine in Africa, my selecting a few less sausages and roast potatoes doesn’t mean the food I left on the carvery counter was going to be posted to Kenya.

It wasn’t, it would have been eaten by some other glutenous diner, thrown away, or worse yet heated up for the next day. My piling all of that food on my plate simply meant that the Leigh Arms would have to order more Yorkshire puddings the following week.

No African kids would be harmed in the process.

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Earlier this month, the last remaining survivor of World War I died in France. Lazare Ponticelli was an Italian who decided to ‘fight’ for the French, for some strange reason.

The full story can be read here.

France’s last remaining veteran of World War I died Wednesday at age 110 after outliving 8.4 million Frenchmen who fought in what they called “la Grande Guerre.”

Now, while I think it’s great that someone who was around in WWI is still alive, or was earlier this month, is it really that much of an achievement that a French ‘soldier’ managed to survive so long? Let’s face it, the French didn’t actually do a lot of fighting anyway. The Germans and the British were at it hammer and tongs the whole time, so any of them surviving today is something worth shouting about, but as France’s contribution to war is to eat some cheese, drink some wine, give a Gallic shrug and offer up an extensive collection of finely made white linen in exchange for their flag, any Frenchman surviving isn’t really that surprising.

If  Lazare Ponticelli put as much effort into war as his adopted countrymen then he was always going to last a good few years.

As for why an Italian would choose to fight for France, that’s a whole other ball game.

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