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If 17.4 per cent of Londoners are self-employed, it follows that almost one in five of us have spent January completing a tax return.
Oh wait. Apart from the smug, highly organised ones who did theirs in October and have spent January riding unicorns and stroking kittens. Every January, I send the same grovelling email to my accountant, who is called Eric, for accountants are never called Brad or even Tom. ‘Hi Eric. I’m so sorry I didn’t send this earlier. I’ve just been so busy with work’ (I haven’t. Nobody has commissioned me for a week. I have been eating crisps to avoid adding up my Uber bill).
This tax year, filing my return has been more eye-gougingly tortuous than ever, a fact I’m blaming on the paperless economy and a greatly reduced consumption of wine. We all want to save the trees. We don’t all want to scroll through 38,652 emails to find the digital receipt from @genericallynamedcoffeeshop for the £2.90 flat white we bought in February 2019. Nor do we want to stand in line while the customer in front types his own email address three times (damn you, autocorrect) on to an iPad. How can you file a paperless receipt in your old-skool concertina folder? You can’t: yet should you be investigated, you’re expected to produce receipts from the past seven years. Protect the rainforests or protect yourself from a prison sentence? It’s a tough call.
Hard to keep tabs on as some paperless innovations are (bank statements, Ubers, Deliveroos), others are inspired. W1’s ace new eco-hotel, Treehouse, has dispensed with room service menus in favour of guests ordering food via an app. As well as saving paper, this allows you to track the minutes until your eggs Benedict arrive, thus avoiding that awkward moment when the waiter knocks just as you step into the shower. Next January, I’ll be doing my tax return there. Or rather, this October.
Woes in the wake of woke
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Three weeks in, and already new year resolutions to be kind and tolerant appear to have been binned along with the bread sauce. It’s a funny old world where ‘woke’ is used as a criticism, yet here we are. Surely every time ‘woke’ is used as a slur is evidence that we need it. Like ‘vegan’, ‘basic’ and ‘nice’, ‘woke’ meant no harm, yet all four have passed through the lexicon to become veiled insults. Would we rather Harry and Meghan were asleep to the racism, sexism and paucity of support for mental health issues affecting this (and any other) country?
Addictive ads
Normally, targeted ads miss their target by some miles, but Instagram’s can see straight into my soul. While some users are sold exotic holidays, I’m sold variations on ‘the world’s most comforting dog bed’ and a non-stop stream of household gadgets: crack cocaine for anyone who grew up reading the Innovations catalogue every Sunday (RIP).
I’ve already bought a Paw Buddy (don’t ask), an oscillating brush that promises to transform my grout (sexy) and a plastic triangle that claims to maximise my cupboard space, sold via a video featuring a crazed-looking woman blissfully stacking condiment bottles on to a shelf. How’s your new year going?
