Taxing matters

From time to time, I moan about all the people who spend so much time and effort avoiding paying tax. Sometimes offering the mitigation - for example at reference 1 - that it is very hard to frame taxes so that they are fair, simple and hard to avoid.

Less frequently, I comment on the old fashioned skill of spinning entertaining and inoffensive conversation out of nothing. A skill which cropped up, as it happens, at reference 2, yesterday afternoon, in connection with the manners of the aristocracy of the Ancien Régime. As contrasted with the proletarian or commercial manners of the new regime.

While this morning there is an amusing article in the FT (reference 3) about VAT on sandwiches (zero rated) which are not far removed from confectionery (20%) or cakes (it all depends) - to wit strawberry and cream sandwiches from Marks & Spencer. I shall have to see if I can spot one of these things on one of my visits to said store, in Epsom or elsewhere. 

Or is it all a fantasy, spun out of nothing at all?

PS 1: I imagine that these sandwiches only work on sliced factory white. Chunky brown not the thing at all. Rather like bacon sandwiches as far as that goes.

PS 2: a little later: BH tells me that she knows all about these things, having read about them in the 'Metro' a couple of weeks ago. She did tell me about them at the time, but I could not have been giving the matter the attention it deserved. She also reminded me of the importance of jam sandwiches in the childhood diet of the 1950s. Which for both of us meant home made jam, made with more fruit than sugar - rather than the stuff that you buy from supermarkets today. While jam sandwiches do not appear among the commercial offerings of today at all, this despite the amount of sugar swinging about otherwise.

PS 3: one of this morning's offerings from the Google advertisement server. Haven't heard from them for a bit. In fact, quick search does not turn them up in the archive at all - there is reference 7, but that is Stihl rather than Karcher. On the other hand, the name is familiar, so perhaps they were visible in the expedition noticed at reference 8?

PS 4: search of the archive was not improved by adding the accent back over the 'a' in Kärcher - with the point here being that some searches - including blog search - are accent sensitive.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/07/the-new-car-series-2-episode-1.html.

Reference 2: Les Adieux à la Reine - Chantal Thomas - 2002.

Reference 3: A stale, taxing take on M&S’s viral strawberry ‘sando’: VAT’s all, folks - Louis Ashworth, Financial Times - 2025.

Reference 4: https://psmv2.blogspot.com/2015/05/jogging-memory.html. Previous notice of Thomas.

Reference 5: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/01/rien.html. And another.

Reference 6: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chantal_Thomas. Not to be confused with the one with two s's at the end.

Reference 7: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/09/autumn-heritage-day-1-session-1.html.

Reference 8: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/06/ladderland.html.