Tax Evasion and Tax Avoidance

Interested to read in the Evening Standard a confusion between tax evasion and tax avoidance. It's important because it kind of relates to the law, without which the country would no doubt descend into anarchy.

Sebastian Shakespeare describes plumbers working for cash-in-hand, and Amazon's cunningly-contrived tax status, as "Tax avoidance" - thus putting them on the same level, give or take the amounts of money involved. Well in the law of the land, these aren't the same.

A plumber working for cash in hand and not declaring his or her income is guilty of tax evasion. This is a crime. Amazon's current rate of tax payment (none, if you're interested) is not tax evasion. It's tax avoidance. Unless they're breaking the law, in which case it's evasion. Although, to be fair to Amazon, the money they pay to their warehouse and other workers, web designers and so on is income taxed, and the Amazonians then spend their money in shops, so it's not all bad.

You may think I'm a bit tetchy on this subject, but that's only because I am. Beaker (Cayman Islands) is a 100% legal offshore tax avoidance vehicle. It may be unethical, dodgy and mean. I may be fleecing the Beaker People to a degree that's unwise in the current weather conditions. But I'd hate to think it was illegal. That would be wrong.

Festival of Snow-related Bad Theology

Since we had to cancel the  Global Warming event we were quite excited at Young Keith's suggestion of a "Festival of Snow-related Theology". His idea was that everyone in the community should have to stand up and give us an insight into humanity and its relationship to the Divine, using a snow or ice-related illustration.

What he didn't tell us was that he had a crack team of snowballers, ready to strike if anyone toppled over into whimsy or bad theology. Which, let's be honest, was always going to be likely.

Goffrey was first. He explained how he always saw the nature of God in terms of the threefold nature of water - that the Father is the steady, regular pattern of ice; Jesus the living water; the Spirit is like steam, which bloweth where it will as it comes out of a kettle. I think Goffrey is quite lucky. In the old days he would've been burnt at the stake for modalism like that - not just covered in snow.

I took a fair number of snowballs myself for my response to Goffrey. Iexplained that a more reasonable analogy to the Trinity can be made in terms of the triple point of water. Turns out when explaining a mystery, one shouldn't use an illustration nobody can comprehend. Even if you use a phase diagram. The last words I heard before things all got a bit confused was "what state is this then, O Wise One?"

Hnaef was up next. He explained how he also used ice-related illustrations for the trinity. So there are six sides to every snowflake, recognising the sixfold nature of the water atom (I let this go - it probably wasn't worth arguing with). And then there are two natures of Christ - human and divine. And two times three is... well, thankfully he was cut off at that point by a hail of snow and had to take cover before he got into any more trouble.

Charlii stood up and said  what did snowflakes and fingerprints have in common? To which Young Keith's uncle, the police officer, replied that they can both give away the identity of a criminal - footprints in the snow being a means of following the miscreants back from the scene of crime. No, replied Charlii - they're both unique. Your fingerprints are yours and nobody else's and no two snowflakes are ever the same - so we are all special and unique. To which Burton, reasonably I thought, asked how did she know this and how could she prove it? Which scientist, asked Burton, had ever measured and categorised every snowflake that ever fell or will ever fall? Charlii stuttered a bit as she wondered whether these two "facts" were really true after all. Which was fateful. We had to dig her out the snow with a spade. Still, she's still a vast improvement over our last trainee druid, who was tarred and feathered after that talk on the Christian roots of Margaret Thatcher's politics.

Mansfield Woodhouse butted in at this point. He has always been one of the more moral of the Woodhouse family - especially compared with his mother, who sits at home day after day having successive fits of the vapours and failing to make matches for her sons. Should we not, said Mansfield, rather see morality as an icy landscape - where if we take a step from the straight and narrow we may stray onto a slippery slope and shoot off downhill to disaster?

I'm afraid by this stage I was cold, grumpy and fed up with theology. So I switched on the sprinkler system in the Moot House. Everybody's a lot closer to the nature of frozen water now, although their theology's no better than it was. Still, I feel we've all learnt something.

An Inconvenient Truth

Today's lecture "God, Gore and Gaia - the roles of populist science and post-modern religion in confusing weather with climate' has beenl cancelled due to snow.

I blame all that Global Warming. Someone Up There must be very angry with us.

Knowing your Onians

As the snow buckets down across England, tonight we in Husborne Crawley will light a paraffin-wax, fossil-fuel tea light in honour of Charles Onians.

I believe that Charles is still a working journalist, although I've not noticed much in the way of his work lately - especially around the subject of global warming. But every time snow breaks out in England, all the people that don't believe in anthropogenic global warming link to Charles's item in 2000 - "Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past". As an Independent article it was a perfect example of its kind - of the highest Green potentials, scare-mongering in an intellectual kind of way and ahead of its time. At least 12 years ahead of its time as it turns out. Although, of course, he could turn out to be right in the end.

And so once again, as on many similar days over the last few years, we remember Charles Onians. And all across England, others will do likewise. I suppose you could call it his "Michael Fish" moment. We will celebrate by singing Marillion's 1989 song, Season's End. Makes me melancholy to think it's nearly a quarter of a century since they made this terrifying prophecy.


Getting close to Season's End, I heard somebody say
That it might never snow again in England.
Snowflakes in a newborn's fist, sledging on the hill
Are these things we'll never see, in England?

(Answer - No).

Gathering Winter Fuel

Foolishly, as it turns out, we burnt a lot of our firewood on Imbolc as we celebrated the forthcoming end of Winter. A little early, as I now realise.

So we're needing to proclaim the Beaker equivalent of Martial Law here. Or, for the group of people on retreat this weekend who are members of the Jedi faith, Martian Law.

So can everyone get out and find every bit of available combustible material to keep the stoves going? Fresh-cut wood is not going to help, so please leave the Avenue and the Spinney standing.

I'm thinking more of any more old pallets from Marston Gate that may be laying around, the half-burnt remains of tea lights that we can melt the wax out, briquettes pressed out of doily lint, and any old tyres you can find? I know they're a bit smoky, but in environmental terms they're actually more sustainable than wind turbines. And nobody's going to know it's us burning tyres, as it's going to be too cold for anyone to come out and check.

I'll be in my office knocking up a quick "Liturgy of it still being Winter". I love the changing of the seasons - but why does it have to be so changeable?

Quick Chris Huhne Joke

Obviously I can't comment on his upcoming court case. But I would say Chris Huhne's a rubbish Climate Change Secretary.

He's been in the job for nearly 2 years, and the climate's barely changed at all. What's he been doing?

Theological Reflection on a Derailment at the Points in Bletchley Station

I am pleased to hear that there was just the one injured person as a result of the derailment of the train at Bletchley station this morning. And it would seem that the driver's injuries are light, so that is good news.

Network Rail have indicated that the train may have travelled into the points too fast. Which may or may not be the case - I am happy to await the results of the enquiry which I am sure will be arranged. But it gave me thoughts of how we can learn lessons of life from this kind of unfortunate incident.

To be sure, for many of us our lives, dear readers, can appear to be running on rails. It is not that we have no options - simply that they are a sensible and finite number. For those of us with railway-like lives, there is no question of wandering off down by-ways, taking unwise detours or driving at high speed across playing fields, scattering screaming footballers in our wake. No, we have a choice of high-speed mainlines or attractive quiet branch lines. And wisdom consists in making the right choice when approaching the points.

For if we do not approach points with caution, we can choose unwisely (I realise that for a real train driver the points are chosen for him or her but Eileen has warned me what can happen if I get too Calvinist). We might choose a wrong route and, instead of rolling through the attractive Pennine valleys of life, be presented with the nightmare of a Friday evening on the East Midlands Line. Or, if we are going too fast to be careful we can simply derail and end up explaining to Eternal Controller how it came to be that our lives came off the rails.

For myself, I would be happy to spend my life in the sidings, helpfully pushing carriages around. I would be happy to know that I could never cause a day's disruption on the Euston Line. Quiet, useful and above all safe. For if we do not move too fast, Dear Readers, we can be sure that we will never overturn. Although we may rust solid.

They that go down to the sea in ships...

As the Good Book says, these shall see the wonders of God in the deep.

Impressed by the mini-Leviathan they discovered in the dark cold depths off New Zealand. Personally I would have named it a "mega-prawn" because it would make a better headline. And because I could annoy Drayton by talking about being "prawn again".

It makes you think of the great age these things must live, to grow so big.
It makes you wonder about the sense of consciousness, even self-consciousness, that these things experience.
It makes you astounded, the wonders that are still to be found on this wondrous planet.

And it makes me ponder, where are we ever going to get enough garlic butter?

Lighting the Imbolc Fire

Well, naturally we had to light another one. After all, it's a festival, is imbolc. Whatever it's all about.

I always reckon you can never have too many bonfires. Although, to be honest, this is one of the coldest bonfire days for ages. The Beaker Fertility Folk were hoping for the first rites of spring, but took to wandering around moodily wearing hoodies and thick coats.

At least at this time of the year there's a good reason  for lighting fires. They keep you warm. When the broken pallets started to run out we switched to any old brushwood we could find.

But then Young Keith got all over-enthusiastic. I suppose, in retrospect, that cutting down that leylandii to throw it on the fire was deeply appropriate on this, the last day of the Christmas/Epiphany cycle. It was like the last remnant of Christmas had gone. But fresh leylandi, even in the depths of winter, doesn't burn that well. The smoke was horrendous.

So we're back inside now. We've celebrated something - whatever that something was. And we all smell like car air-fresheners. I've had better celebrations.

Dragging you forward

It always drags you forward, religion.

Take today's twin celebrations of Imbolc and Candlemas. As with most celebrations, strikes me that their co-incidence is just that - a coincidence, since one is dated as half way from the Solstice to the Equinox, while the other is dated as 40 days after Xmas, which is 9 months after the Annunciation which is dated at a "perfect" Good Friday (25 March), which is dated for a modified calculation of the day after Passover, which is based on the date of the full moon after the Vernal Equinox. Which is why Imbolc and Candlemas co-incide. So the really interesting "fact" in the co-incidence of former Western religious festivals and Christian ones is that the human gestation period is approximately 9 months. Phew.

Now Imbolc is, as much as anyone can tell me, about the lifecycle of sheep. About this time of year the ewes are getting ready to have their lambs - a sign of spring, and mutton to come. While Candlemas is about the cross. About the child who was born at Christmas, but can't stay in the stable anymore. We've been thinking about God-with-us, and now we're thinking about God-leading-us. Leading us to Jerusalem, and we know what happens there.

They're both forward-looking. Christmas and Yule were forward-looking - one to the lengthening of the daylight, one to the growing of the light. The Solstices are the tipping points - the length of the days change very slowly. You can rest there for a while, but the reminder is that, though at Winter Solstice the winter's coldest is to come, the days are growing longer. While the darkness is at its height, there's a light shining in it which the darkness can't recognise.

And now the length of days is racing ahead. Yet the shepherds must look to long nights of work as new life starts to force its way into the world, anticipating the Spring. And the Christian looks forward, too. To new Easter life,but that life springing from the bloodied ground of Good Friday. The light is growing, but that light shows up the darkness in people's hearts and lives.

Have a happy Imbolc or Candlemas, whoever you are.

Imbolc Eve

Now everybody's been asking why we can't "just celebrate Candlemas like everyone else" tomorrow. Why, the Beaker People have been asking, can't we just light some candles and have another happy Christmassy thought about the Baby Jesus? What's with instead celebrating an ancient British festival that has some indefinable connection to the reproductive cycle of sheep?

To which I normally reply "because." I know some think that's an unacceptable answer but really it seems to work for me. It's short, for a start. Which frees up my time for other purposes.

But I do have some other reasons why. So I'd like to list them now. Then if all Beaker People could print themselves the list off and have a read they won't need to ask me. Maybe if this works, we can have them laminated (the copies of the list, not the Beaker People) and you can all keep them for next year.

The first is the answer to "Everybody else does it." Would you do everything that everybody else does? If you did you'd be calling for Fred the Shred, now he's been de-Sir-Fred-ed, to be beheaded as well. Which, to be fair, some of you are. But Drayton Parslow doesn't celebrate Candlemas because it has "-mas" in it. Although, strangely, he does celebrate Christmas. (And have you noticed it's less than 11 months away? I can't wait!)

The second is that the Feast of the Presentation of the Little Baby Jesus in the Temple is just a modern, liberal re-naming. The older name, the Purification of the Virgin Mary, tells us more about the inherent beliefs involved here. As is well known our ancestors (or at least those of our ancestors who were celibate and therefore were allowed to be the priests, vicars and bishops who ran the place) thought all sex was bad. Which was why I am now reflecting that they probably weren't our ancestors after all, and maybe it was just the other people who were our ancestors. That's the trouble when you start generalising about stuff you don't understand - you end up writing stuff that sound good but is actually drivel.

Where was I? Right. So if even Mary, who'd not had sex, had to undergo the rite of Purification, then clearly the whole business of reproduction was deeply flawed in those days, and a way to subjugate women. And that's too hard a thought for me to "unpack" right now. So I'll just assure you that it's a fact and that's why we're not celebrating Candlemas.

The second reason (or third, if you count both the first two) is that it's a shiny, candle-y kind of event. And yet this is the day we find out that the baby in Mary's arms is going to cause all kinds of upset, and Mary grief as well. And frankly it's just after Christmas, I've just paid the credit card bill and the weather's freezing solid and I don't think I can take any more sadness. The world's hard enough already. If it were just nice pictures of Baby Jesus, that we could project on the screen while playing Kendrick's Like a Candle Flame on ukulele and ocarina - fine. But all this growing up and dying horribly - not in February.

So tomorrow we're celebrating the ancient British festival of Imbolc. We don't know anything about it, so I can inform you that it's a happy kind of celebration. We will light some candles and drink the special Imbolc Cider we brewed last autumn and we'll play a happy video of baby lambs skipping through attractive but unthreateningly small amounts of new-fallen snow.

And we've a special dinner later. I thought roast lamb with all the trimmings would be appropriate. Or, for vegetarians, all the trimmings.