Most of today was spent trying to organise my office, which is long overdue and yet strangely rewarding to have now conquered. When I say ‘conquered’, this means having put things into neat, autistic piles, without having actually dealt with them. Take the electricity bills, they are now in order and filed away neatly, but absolutely no attempt has been made to go to the Post Office and pay them. It’s a bit like decorating a room as a nursery without bothering with any sort of pregnancy.
People often argue that the tidier your work space, the less cluttered, the more productive you can be. I certainly find this to be true, but the sweet irony is that I spend quite a lot of time tidying up my workspace at the expense of doing any work. I’ll happily dedicate myself to filing receipts if it avoids any work which will pay for the things I’ve bought to get those receipts.
Filing is the curse of the self-employed. Why should a comedian have to pay tax? Why? Did the jester in the Royal courts of medieval England have to pay taxes? No, they merely had to do a silly dance at supper time and juggle. Maybe have some soup poured over them. Modern comics should be the same, we should be exempt from these sort of responsibilities because we’ve purposefully forged a career that avoids responsibility. If Gordon Brown wants me to pop over to his and do some routine about something, okay, that’s his prerogative. But pay tax? It’s not in our nature to bow to the state and sort out our income tax returns, it’s in our nature to go to the pub and spend all we’ve worked for on wine, no women, and song. In most cases it’s our want to spend all we’ve earned on good times and then borrow another £20 off someone for an extension to that good time. We know not of National Insurance and PAYE.
But unfortunately the cruel modern world dictates that even the nation’s jesters and thinkers have to fall into line with the nations parking attendants and receptionists and pay taxes. And because this isn’t automatically deducted from our pay packets, we have to spend days trawling through paperwork, wincing at that outlandish night in Norwich (“Another hooker for Sir?�) and shaking our heads at the impromptu trip to Addis-Ababa, business class. Still, it’s all worth it in the end. We’ll die poor, but we’ll have our memories.
Such a slog though, this administration work. I’ve got an accountant but everything needs to be prepared and that means going through every receipt and seeing what I can realistically claim as a business expense even though it blatantly isn’t. A CD? Of course! You needed to listen to a song for a routine you were thinking of. Clothes? Certainly! You need something to wear on stage. It’s a question of seeing what you think you can chance your arm at. Then there’s fiddly stuff like claiming a percentage of your utility bills back because you work from home, even if your electricity on ever goes on watching Deal Or No Deal and microwaving lasagne. It’s all a game of give and take.
Everyone begrudges tax, but perhaps none more so than me, because I just sit in my flat and don’t bother anyone in the Government for anything. I’d love there to be special unsupported area of Britain where you pay zero percent tax, but you get no Government services. If you get ill, tough, you’ll have to pay a private doctor. If you loose your job, tough, you’ll starve unless you find charity. If there’s a crime committed against you, sort it our yourself because there aren’t any Police. That would suit me fine.
Council tax is perhaps even more annoying. I don’t use any council service, specifically. I know the streets are swept and the bins emptied but… I’d empty my own bin if it saved me £1200 a year. I’d take it all to the tip once a week. There’s nothing else I use the council for, and in fact I think it’s a private company that collect the litter from my building anyway. The council do NOTHING for me, because I ask nothing of them. They do not deserve my bread. £50 a year for keeping the streets swept, maybe. No more.
If there was a vermin problem in my flat, I’d call a private pest controller. I wouldn’t call the council. If there was a mattress dumped by someone in my front yard, I’d remove it, I wouldn’t call the council. I have no contact with them, and yet I pay through the nose for services I neither want or see.
And I’m only up to March on my receipts, so excuse me…
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