Taxes vs. starvation

Dear Diary,

Life. Life. What is life? Love? Surely not. According to Oscar Wilde there are two tragedies in life: one is not getting what you want, the other is getting it.

I know an old hippy who used to work in a factory, and when he walked into work one day wearing a T-shirt with ‘Oscar Wilde’ on it, one of his colleagues asked, “What band’s he from then?” Ahh, the uncultured and unacquainted masses of rural factory workers. They probably thought Wilde was a bass player in a punk band.

I find myself in a state of modest affluence, post-film star wage, but the Council want a shoulder of mutton, blood raw, a pound of flesh. I can either live in all voluptuousness, or pay taxes and starve. The decision is a no-brainer, and I am gearing up for a siege.

I so should have opened the mail, attended the court hearing for not payment of tax, in a suit, clean shaven. I would have been akin to Cicero or Pliny, and surely would have had the charges waived.

A friend of mine (quite a hard friend, a singer in a metal band) once had a Court appearance for the exact same charge.

Magistrate: So Mr. X, what do you have to say for yourself?

Mate (in a gruff London accent): I ’ain’t payin’ it!

Magistrate: You stand to spend a week in prison. What do you mean you aren’t paying it?

Mate: I mean, I ’ain’t payin’ it! Look, you can send me on ’olliday for a week, banged up, and then next year, level the same charges at me, and I’ll spend a ’nuvva week ’olliday. I ain’t payin’ it!

They conferred, and let him off.

I would have put up a somewhat less assertive and perhaps more eloquent defence.

As it stands, I have in my possession the first real amount of money I’ve had this year, and I am still eating the cheapest food, drinking the most modestly price scrumpy, and little Ron’ gets Barker’s complete. (He used to always have that, but since I’ve been on a tenner a week for the past year, he’s had to settle for the cheapest food).

Hunger does strange things to a man. Even if I do lose my house, I will always remember that scene from the Robin Hood movie.

“That Sheriff says we owes him taxes! ... This here is the best we simple men can expect, here we are free, here we are kings...”

That one memorable line kept my spirits up for years on the road.

Max.