Still queen, then?

OUR changing language. My local carpet shop is promising: “We can uplift and move your furniture.” Hallelujah.

AFTER my recent items on spooks, a reader tells me his daughter lived in London, spoke Russian and was offered a job as a receptionist at the Russian Embassy. After some fatherly advice, she declined, on the grounds that everyone in the embassy would think that she was a British spy and everyone outside would think she was a Russian spy.

CHANCELLOR Philip Hammond is out to grab nearly £1 billion in unpaid tax, partly by imposing new penalties on what he calls “the enablers of tax avoidance.” Good luck with that. Here is a short list of suspects to be going on with: George Osborne, Alistair Darling, Gordon Brown, Kenneth Clarke, Norman Lamont and John Major. In fact they may as well chuck the book at every single one of the scores of Chancellors of the Exchequer, all the way back to Eustace of Fauconberd, Bishop of London who was Chancellor in 1221. Between them, they have complicated and expanded the UK taxation rules into a massive tome with thousands of exemptions and tens of thousands of sub-clauses. Our labyrinthine tax system is a happy hunting ground for smart accountants, clever financial advisers and all the other “enablers” who are simply using the small print to minimise what their clients pay. Rewrite the tax system on a couple of sheets of A4 and all the fiddles would vanish overnight.

INCIDENTALLY, do not shed too many tears for White Van Man, the self-employed tradesmen who are being portrayed as the main victims of Hammond's hike in National Insurance payments. In my experience, most of them are perfectly capable of absorbing the increase by other means. Knock off 10 per cent for cash, squire?

MY kindest regards to the reader who sent me a leaflet disproving evolution. In the great scheme of things, it matters not a jot whether a provincial hack believes in Darwin or God, or neither, or both. But once again, for the record, it is my long-held view that believing in evolution by natural selection takes at least as much faith as believing it was all done by a white-bearded old chap in six days. I admit I have been influenced by the classic Gary Larson cartoon, God Creates Snakes. The Almighty is pictured mass-producing serpents by rolling out a lump of clay while exclaiming: “Boy, these things are a cinch!” Bang goes my place in heaven.

INCIDENTALLY, just because the phrase “the great scheme of things” appears in the above item, it does not mean that any such scheme exists. Or, for that matter, does not exist.

SO farewell, Chris Buckland, one of Fleet Street's legends who has died aged 73. He was great company on a press trip to Vietnam many years ago. Buckland is chiefly remembered for his dispatch from the first Gulf War in 1991 which began: “The first casualty of war is not the truth; it is room service.” But the best Buckland yarn was surely his encounter with a lady he couldn't quite place during a Euro summit. “So what are you doing these days?” inquired Buckland. “I am still the Queen of Denmark,” came the reply.