There were no eggs at the end of my bed this Easter. Sally and Daisy went up to Lincoln to visit family and I spent the entire holiday alone and doing my taxes.
Doing tax for me involves pulling out all the receipts I’ve accumulated over the past twelve months, sorting them into piles and then entering the figures into an accounting file. Once that’s done I email the file to my accountant and he tells me what I can and can’t get away with. I have a more liberal interpretation of the tax laws, you see. I reckon I should be able to claim haircuts as a promotional expense because I only get them when I’m doing a talk.
It’s a long and boring process but it does have its moments. Going through the receipts from my travels is almost like flicking through a photo album – all the memories come flooding back. (I can’t believe how sad that makes me seem!)
Anyway, I finally finished yesterday evening at 6.10 p.m. I celebrated with a beer from the fridge. And because nothing was on tele I thought I’d reward myself with a Teleport movie – a pay-per-view service offered by our cable company.
To be honest, the selection was pretty dire so I went for The 40-Year-Old Virgin. It was surprisingly good. I actually laughed out loud a couple of times, something I haven’t done with an American comedy in quite some time.
As the credits came up I had a sobering thought. I’m home alone using a pay-per-view service to watch a movie about virgins. Now that’s going to be fun to explain to Sally when the bill comes in.
This is where you'll find everything you need to know about me and my books.
Well, at least I now know that I’m not the only one who keeps all the receipts from my travels! Although quite why I should ever need to prove to anyone which laundrette I used in Knysna (to use a random example) is another matter entirely.
Funnily enough, ‘The 40 Year Old Virgin’ reminds me of my travels too – I and a couple of friends went to watch it on a wet night in Durban!
Hey think on the bright side though Peter – if you keep the invoice for your porno [we're just not buying the whole '40 year old virgin' story mate] your Accountant might let you offset it for tax.
Result !
Hah! Good point Alex. Sadly I already try to claim any DVD, CD or visit to the cinema as a tax deduction. My arguemebt is that I have to keep up with the ‘zeitgeist.’
I always seem to keep my receipts from places and then I will come accross them hiding away in my wallet a few months/years in the future for a bit of impromptu remenising!
I use to keep all the bus train air and whatever tickets when travelling…
Just to remind me I was there. And to use them if ever sometime someone will ask me the classic question: where you were that day at that time?
Same reason why I destroy always all my receipts!
By the way, this Easter was quite quiet for me too.
A new job brings new responsabilities.
Like starting it in the middle of the week before a 2 Bank Holiday w/e…
So stuck in London, walking the Hammersmith riverside and Hyde Park.
Thanks God pubs were open.
I never intentionally keep my receipts but they seem to find a way of sticking with me, only ever reappearing when I’m flipping through an old book. The last time I was in Indonesia I decided that I had to re-read Herodotus and promptly picked up a brand new copy. No mere reading material, this was a travel companion of the highest order. I still find receipts tucked away in its pages, almost as if Herodotus himself left them there for me (or as if I was leaving them for him), bringing to life a kind of Hellenistic Indonesia.
Going further off topic, do you have particular books that remind you of destinations, Peter? It’s strange that they’re often works that have absolutely nothing to do with the place. For instance I’m currently teaching in Korea and I’m positive that Bruce Chatwin in Patagonia will forever remind me of this year not Simon Winchester’s Korea. Similarly, it was reading Brideshead Revisited that will always bring back Bangkok even though I also read Pico Iyer’s Video Night in Kathmandu and John Ralston Saul’s Paradise Eaters at the same time. I guess I want to be in one place and be reading about another.
Hi Paul,
Interesting aside. I always think that it is particular music that reminds me of places, but you’re right books can have the same effect. I don’t re-read a lot of books so it’s more a remembered assciation. The Flounder by Gunter Grass reminds me of spending six weeks floating down the Zaire River on a barge. I’d bought it in Nairobi because it was the thickest book they had and found it inpenetrable until I got stuck and had to do something – anything – to remain sane!