VAT cut latest

The lights have been on all night at the Treasury, where calculations for Chancellor Darling's next steps are being processed in large spreadsheets. The word is that VAT may be reduced along with some other measures.

A VAT reduction from 17.5% to 15% would remove the "temporary increase" made in 1991 to compensate for the Poll Tax debacle. Thats a reduction on a £9.99 VAT-ed item to an amazing £9.87, which I somehow think gets lost in the noise.

Such a reduction of some 2.13% in the price of an item requires spending of £469 a week on VAT-able items (eg not food) to save £10. It may chop cash from the Exchequer, but it doesn't make a lot of difference when even a £600 telly would still be £587.23 after the adjustment. The £13 is probably not the dealbreaker.

Let's try 12.5% VAT, a reduction of 5%. That's more of a 'UK Economy Winter Sale' level, but still requires the traders to pass on the savings, rather than have reasons to somehow round up ticket prices. That £9.99 becomes £8.50+1.05 = £9.55. When retailers are already knocking off 20% in pre Christmas sales, the 45p does not seem all that exciting.

How about a present? A Christmas Xbox would make an interesting example: A few weeks ago they were £169, then all the retailers passed on the manufacturer reduction which saw the price drop to £129 - forty quid less. A VAT reduction of 5% (ie to 12.5%) would take another circa £6 off of the price. Not enough to even change the second digit - £129 becomes £123. Hmm.

Having just flitted through Heathrow, the effect of pseudo 'No VAT' is more pronounced. The same item would become around £109 - see tourists buying up cheap items in the airside stores.

I suppose in the absence of a December VAT holiday, we will have to find other ways to amuse ourselves with the remaining banknotes.

why am I who?

"Aeon Flux Guy" as the next Doctor Who after the imposter doctor has been trounced?

I still prefer the "Dylan Moran for Doctor Who" campaign and notice rashbre central started to get a lot of hits about it again.

convenience

During the London Bloggers' meetup our general chatter turned to the topic of 'marrying abroad for papers'.

So when I stopped by Peter's excellent site later, he had a click through from his recent time in Paris, which led me to Katarina Radovic.

Katarina, as a photo project, decided play a young woman from Eastern Europe in search of a 'convenient' husband in Paris.

She spotted possible partners asking them to pose for a snapshot as if a couple. Not every type of “marriageable material” would do; the selection of candidates was to create an aspirational intersect, whilst creating the look of being 'in the hurry' to get it done.

Worth a click through to the project.

juiced

Sitting in the Giraffe Bar at airport rejigging computers.

One of us charging a PC from a nearby power socket and the other stamping out unexpected side effects of a recent software install. Half expecting dark clothed people with baseball caps to swing in on ropes through the windows because the recharging PC is about 3 metres from our table. In direct line of sight though.

The juice tastes good.

cut price designer gowns from the financial pages

Today's papers are all full of stories of retailers' sales in the run up to Christmas. The M&S one day 20% Sale seemed to provoke the headline although the journalists took the easiest route to reporting it as further signs of doom and gloom.

I listened to Sir Philip Green (He of Arcadia & BHS) this morning and thought he expressed well the retailers' talking up of the situation about giving customers something and owing it to staff and the economy to try to keep things running. Its good to hear some positive spin alongside all the negatives.
The deregulation of money markets ten years ago (Chancellor Brown, by any chance?) allowed banks to gamble twice the prudent level of debt creating much of the current deficit.

Another high street retailer was front paged as on sale for one pound today and further illustrates the cavalier consequences of captains of industry rewarded with multi million bonuses last year who looked the other way whilst the bad betting occurred.

I'm sure Gordon can't just be deflecting attention from his own part in the deregulation, blaming America, attempting to gain tacit international profile and coming up with some pre-election giveaways? Surely not.

blogladi bloglada

After a diagnonal hike across the city we found John waiting outside the Corney and Barrow with cellphone poised and so three of us entered and disappeared underground into the smart subterranean world of arches.

We quickly found the roped off area for the Blogladi Bloglada session and said "Hi" to Andy Bargery who had performed another selection of genius as well as co-ordinating around 80 free sprits who had said "Yes".

Also a chance to say "Hello" to Melanie Seasons, who I had last met at the Camel and Artichoke soon after she had first begun her UK adventure over from the USA.

Time to hit the bar and remake a few acquaintances as well as to say hello to new London Bloggers making a first appearance.

A tipple or two later, Melanie was up on stage to talk entertainingly about her experiences and contrasts between US-based PR blogging and what she had found in the UK.

Let's just say the Brits came out quite well and sort of catching up with the US-scene, although the whole vertical categorisations, PR links and monetisation of blogs seemed to be more prevalent in the States. Brits clearly like chatting in pubs and the blogging is the camouflaged reason.

I liked that Melanie explained that she had set up fakeplasticnoodles.com more as a networking tool than with any thoughts of any great commercial advantage. It had certainly worked and she was well linked and twittered in to the UK scene.

Animated questions - even supplementaries and some practical advice about remembering to leave comments when wandering around the blogosphere.

The session ended with plenty of warm applause.

The evening was a well balanced blend of chatter, networking and an interesting presentation. Altogether well run - thanks to Andy, Melanie and of course the great gang that attended.

My moo cards runneth over.

wait zone

This is the 'before' end of an evening, when I'm supposed to be meeting outside Costa Coffee at Waterloo station right by the post box. The designated meeting spot.

A few minutes later I'll be told by a taxi driver that its impossible to get to Aldgate this evening and then a few minutes after that I'll be on the Drain heading to Bank, from where I can walk along Leadenhall Street to this evening's destination.

But more of that when the beer has worn off.

one dot fifty

All that money we're throwing into the economy seems to be worth less every time I look at it.

If Gordon threw in £200bn, it was worth $400bn around a month ago.

Now its worth $300bn.

That's another $100bn that has disappeared in a matter of weeks, yet we are not supposed to talk about it.

No wonder I need one of Linda's excellent cushions to rest my confused head.

cushion

I did visit Linda's fine art collection during Saturday afternoon.

I had to fight past a line of people all admiring various works in order to say "hello". About fifteen minutes later Rob showed up too. Linda has always been interested in textiles, photography and fine art including time spent at the prestigious St Martin's along the way, so I knew it would be special.

I selected a fine cushion to add to the rashbre central collection, although I'm wondering if it should really be in some sort of display area. Linda's work is very eye catching and original using silks, velvets and satins with designs that move from photography or sketches through various computerized processes in her studio and eventually become the designs which people were clamoring for today.

I know every piece has a story and the suitably improbable sounding one for the piece I have is actually based upon the work of a manhole cover designer, who also produced other metalwork for gullies and similar. You'd be hard pressed to know that by the time its been reworked by Linda and although the back story has suitably quirky appeal to me, I'd made a selection before I heard the tale.

In between the crowds of happy viewers, we also caught up on many other events even including Rob inspecting my fingers for any signs of guitar playing or similar mischief.

Alongside Linda's more exquisite pieces, she has developed an affordable line, which is proving popular with the upcoming festive season. Of course I also had various marketing suggestions to help Linda spread the word about what she is doing. Its at times like that I find my friends "tolerate" my enthusiasm, so I have to sometimes dial back the setting.

Please do click here to show support and request one of Linda's lovely brochures by email.

smoke

The rashbre central parking lot is filled with convertibles today as Julie and Andrea marshall people for their next great tour with the band. I think tonight its York on the way to Newcastle and then some zig-zagging around the Northern reaches of England. I'm sure they will be all of a twitter about it later.

This originally gave me a clear run at the weekend, as one of those left behind, but a little leaflet dropped through the door this morning from the unexpectedly early Saturday postman.

One of those 'burning bridge' moments.

Last Friday we'd been at the Michelle Shocked gig, where Michelle spoke of the old song which talks about 'walking across that burning bridge' to keep friendship with someone who had moved to Alaska. Turns out that was 25 years ago and the kid in the song is now 6 feet tall. However, Michelle had recently returned from visiting the friends who now live in Missoula, Montana - which I guess gets nearly as parky as Wassila in Winter.

So, the point? The little hastily scribbled postal leaflet was from Linda, who turns out to be in the area doing some sort of arty thing -er- today. Now I haven't seen Linda for quite a long time either. Not in the Shocked realms, but maybe ten years.

"Take me to the bridge", as they say in Anchorage.

glory hope mountain

A surprise CD by The Acorn blopped through the letterbox today. Its a proper 'concept' CD; a genre less commonplace nowadays.

Penned by Canadian Rolf Klausener, and with a narrative that weaves through all of the tracks. Its quite a chilled kind of sound, good musicans who sound as if they could play the whole album without needing a stack of retakes and fancy mixing. Oddly, for a Canadian, the singer somehow reminds me of George Harrison.

It actually arrived with a second mini album from an Acorn London gig, which illustrates their performing abilities well. The sleeve notes of Glory Hope Mountain indicate a dedication to the lyricist's Honduran mother and I'm guessing that the narrative of floods and reconstructiion is biographical.

When I first heard Neutral Milk Hotel's Aeroplane over the Sea, I knew it was one I'd return to fairly often and this has some similar tonality, perhaps more laid back than Jeff Mangum's churning acoustic but with similar need to get out some reasonably intense lyrics. There's plenty enough instruments, guitar, cello, banjo, slide, and some very gentle percussion.

Something for the early end of a mellow evening.

toad

Corporate eating for the last few days. Not all in one place, but a random selection of coincidences which have led me to have suppers, breakfasts, lunches and so on in various meeting situations.

In amongst the posh food was a 'toad in the hole' lunch option served yesterday as part of a meeting interlude. "C3" they are calling it. "Credit Crunch Cuisine".

"Gravy" optional?