It's all in my head

Stadtpark

I have been very quiet during the last few days because I have been preparing our tax returns.

That is not quite true because I do not actually prepare our tax returns – in fact I could not prepare our tax returns – these are beyond the comprehension of mere mortals and are done by a large accounting firm with branches in almost every country in the world including Australia and Austria.

But each year I am required to provide masses of information about many things - most of which I know nothing about.

This is done online – and each year there is a new and improved form – which for some reason can never carry the information forward from the old and disreputable form – so I have to input stuff I have told them many times before about who we are and where we live and where our house is in Australia and where we live in Austria and how long we have been here and when we arrived.

And then there are things I can tell them like bank interest that we got and bank interest that we paid because I can look these things up. It is a tedious and time consuming process. Copious amounts of looking up and data collection is required.

But then things get difficult because Cate is an Australian resident who lives in Austria and works for a US company and gets paid in various places in various ways including in the USA and they ask a lot of questions that I cannot answer about things of which I know almost nothing.

As you well know – I do not get paid – I survive on what I can steal from the housekeeping – but I have to do a tax return because there are a couple of bits and pieces in my name. Not much mind you but enough that the government needs to know.

Unfortunately there only two definitive boxes ‘yes or no’. So if I am asked

‘Did you receive any dividend income from split equity holdings which you subdivided with pelican derivatives while boxing your non-taxable boodle bonds?’

I am supposed to click one of these two boxes – yes or no?

Well I left the financial world about 100 years ago and have no idea about any of this stuff any more or what happens with Cate’s stuff – and neither does she. She just gets money and spends it.

All I have is a bit of paper from a USA broker which looks a Pakahpu Ticket - and I have no idea what it means.

But fortunately – there is a box on the electronic form that says ‘I will come back to this’ and this allows me to move to the next incomprehensible question.

And – also fortunately – it is not like a computer game that does not allow you to move on until you finish one level.

So at the end of the process I have actually answered about 60% of the questions and half-answered about 20% but – regretfully – about 20% will be ones that I should go back to - but never will. This is good news for me but bad news for the major international accounting firm with branches everywhere.  

What I do then is scan in all the Pakahpu Tickets and attach them to the file and press SEND and about 30 seconds later some poor sod in Sydney gets this pile of half finished steaming trash on his PC.

But – he being an accountant – will look at my scanned in documents and will know exactly what it means in respect of pelican derivatives and boodle bonds and will wonder about the blithering idiot who completed the form who does not understand the simplicity of the whole process.

  

But accountants are like that. I did accounting for a diploma and actually got a credit for the subject but I found the whole process miserable beyond belief.

Although I did find some of it useful when I was subsequently a director of a bank and had to make decisions about whether or not to lend money to companies - based on their balance sheets. But it never really made sense to me that no matter how bad they were their assets always equaled their liabilities.  

For a later degree I did quantitative analysis. Let me tell you that if you ever have to move bales of cotton down the Mississippi river from Memphis to New Orleans and have a number of different barges with differing capacities and different speeds and need to do it in the smallest number of trips – I’m your man.

I have the formula locked in my brain. I have never been called upon to use it but it is there – waiting to be released.

Time to Speak Out!

November 18th is the day to Speak Out against domestic violence and as a long time follower of the wonderful Wanderlust I agreed a long time ago to link to her blog to support this event.

One in four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime. That is way too many. The aim of this event is to bring awareness to the cause and encourage victims to speak out and seek help.

Kristen has a compelling story to tell about her own experiences and the work she has been doing to help others - so please have a look at her blog and the work she is doing.

So where are the ducks in Paris?

Stadtpark 15 November 2011

Well today Cate was supposed to cruise in at about 9.00 AM from Istanbul – have a shower – repack her bag and leave for Delhi at about 11.30 AM.  

But  I woke with the smell of goats in the air and sure enough her plane was delayed from Delhi and she did not get home until after 10:30 AM so it was a mad rush for her to get ready for the 11:30 AM pickup.

And – goat things being what they are – the travel person messed up the seats for the umpteenth time this year and she was sitting in her least favourite seat on the aircraft – in the very front row next to the toilet – but Hallelujah! It was broken and the plane was not full so she was able to move back a couple of rows.

This was after she was told on checking in that her carry on luggage was two kilos overweight. She fixed the man with her death stare and said ‘I am a Senator and I am travelling Business Class’. 

He said ‘Take a book out of your luggage - I am just going to change my underpants’ and she did – and in a jiffy he was back and the problem was solved.

Of course there was also a problem with boarding and then they had to de-ice the wings and all that sort of palaver and I was getting regular progress reports - some of which were of a tense and terse nature - but part of my role is to deal with difficult situations and as my life is basically all beer and skittles I am happy to take on the role of the flak magnet when Cate has some spleen to vent – not that there was much left after she was airborne today.

Anyway – as I have said – this is her last major trip for the year – barring additional goat things which are always possible because there are some people out there just itching to fuck things up beyond all recognition - but let’s hope we can get to Christmas without too many major crises because it does take a toll on us all when things go pear-shaped.

Anyway I am not sure if I mentioned that Cate is going to a conference in Paris next Monday and I am going with her because this gives us the opportunity to spend a long weekend there and also to see my daughter Molly who lives there with her cat Merlin – and also edits my blog.

So for the first few days while Cate is conferencing Molly and I will visit cafés and cemeteries and take photos of cats and wander the streets of Paris – which is my second favorite city after Vienna.

We are staying in the conference hotel – whatever that is – for the first four days and then I have booked the Kube Hotel in Paris which is in the 18th Arrondissement where Molly lives – but not in the high end.

It was apparently once one of the coolest hotels in Paris – and has the Ice KUBE Bar – where really cool people drink.

These days it is more of a night club with a doss house attached but we will do the best we can. Paris is expensive – even in winter – and we are saving our money for Norway.

I will ask Molly where the ducks are in Paris. I may get some photos.