Thursday 22 October 2015 – Two International NY Times articles capture my eye and imagination: “The black hole in Starbucks’ tax strategy: Obscure London affliate is focus of EU regulators investigating illicit deals” “Irwin A. Schiff, fervent opponent of income taxes, dies at 87” It has been often said that the only two certainties in… Continue reading New Zion vs the Taxman
Tag: humor
Pieces of flair
I was asked the other day by Roger, a Starbucks partner and shift manager, what was my favourite film, and I must confess the suddenness of the question had caught me off-guard, especially as it is so difficult to narrow down just one title from the many movies I have seen and enjoyed and in… Continue reading Pieces of flair
Great expectations?
Well. in an hour and an half’s time, a mini-adventure begins… Off to Sardinia with She Who Must Be Obeyed… What to expect? What to expect? Mediterranean. Hot hot hot weather. A Canadian in Sardinia = a penguin in Hell? A land of sardines? A land of sardonic laughter? A land of danger? In the… Continue reading Great expectations?
Running against the wind
I know I should be grateful. Yesterday, my wife Ute organised the purchase of my first laptop and my first tablet. I now will have the capacity of leaving home and be interconnected with the world even more than I was in the past with my non-apps, not very smart mobile phones. Then why don`t… Continue reading Running against the wind
Rooster in the Henhouse
There are situations in life when you know you shouldn’t look, but you can’t help yourself. Scenes of disaster, like a car crash or a fire, find people gawking and staring, knowing they should either help or stop staring but the impulse to simply look is irresistible. A man is walking with his wife and… Continue reading Rooster in the Henhouse
The Last Chance Saloon
The mind loves its little games at times. It imagines things that cannot be. It invents ideas that have not been. It plays and teases with both the conscious and unconscious parts of our self. Especially when one emerges from the cocoon of slumber the mind still continues to operate in a dreamlike hallucinatory state.… Continue reading The Last Chance Saloon
Life among the Oxonians
Back in the south of England after some time spent up in Oxford, a place I once called home for a number of months over two decades ago, a place that still has a hold upon my heart, and happily a place where I still have friends. It was and remains one of the fastest… Continue reading Life among the Oxonians
Sounds and signs in discord
One of the greatest difficulties with English language teaching is trying to explain why English words with similar spellings can have such different sounds. Compare for example words like though(th-oh), through (thr-oo), thorough (thur-oh) and tough (tuff). Or why words with different spellings have the same sound, like to, too and two. And there are… Continue reading Sounds and signs in discord