Self-Assessment
Posted: Tue 27 October, 2009 Filed under: 1BEM, Business, Cynicism, Domestic, Getting Organised, Security, Thoughts 3 Comments »Over the weekend, I completed – and sent off – my Self-Assessment Tax Return to Your Friends And Mine at HMCE. The deadline for receiving them is October 31st (i.e. this Saturday) so I’ve only just scraped it this year, having been really really good with it last year.
I know, I could do it all online, and have ’til January 31st to fill it in etc. – but I still don’t trust the online system. I wrote about this a couple of years back, and my feelings are still the same. Mainly, I’m happy to spend the money and use the Special Delivery stuff to get the tax return in – it just means I’ve got a signed confirmation that the Tax Return has been received where it’s been sent. I’ve been bitten by that before, the entire “Oh no, we haven’t received it” from HMCE. Of course, if you say you haven’t received something from them, it’s a case of “Well we sent it, so you must have received it”, but it’s not the same thing when it’s time to send stuff to them.
Basically, when it comes to sending documents to HMCE, it always pays to be paranoid. Always assume that they are either :
- Vindictive
- Inefficient beyond the dreams of man
- Both
and you’ll be OK.
It’s because of that – OK, it’s partly because of that – that I still don’t trust the online submission of tax returns. Yes, you can be pretty sure they’ve received it – but when it comes to HMRC, “pretty sure” simply isn’t sure enough. I feel the same way about HMCE’s online submission as I do about the people who store all their important data/files with Google, Amazon or some other internet cloud-based server – in other words, “Expect it to get lost. Expect it to get hacked.”
My tax return is on paper. Yes, I know it’ll end up being clocked in to the HMCE ‘System’. That’s fine. But letting their system be the only place it’s held? Sod that. I’ve got a photocopy of the tax return. I know where the figures came from, and I’ve got them recorded. I expect HMCE’s copy of the document to get lost, edited, hacked or mislaid. If/when it happens, I’ve got my own hard-copy backup. If you’ve done all the calculations on-line and not printed out the results (or even better, screenshots) and/or received confirmation from the system of those figures, what proof have you got of what you filled in?
Even if it’s simply that the electronic version gets corrupted, if HMCE also have it on paper then there’s some way they can recover the information without me even needing to be involved. If they only have an electronic version, then lots of people are going to be screwed if anything does happen.
So while I can, I’ll stick with doing my tax return on paper and sending it in to them. When they eventually go to “Online only”, I’ll still make sure I’ve got a printout of the entire thing, along with all the figures I’ve used to calculate it.
Call me paranoid, I don’t mind. Frankly, I’ve been kicked in the nuts by HMCE too many times to not be paranoid. And that’s not paranoia – that’s just common sense.
Unwell
Posted: Mon 26 October, 2009 Filed under: Animals, Domestic, Health 1 Comment »Last night, we ended up taking Hound to the emergency vet. She’d been a bit flat all day – and we should’ve realised all was Not Well when she didn’t move while we ate lunch.
But during the evening she went downhill quite quickly, so we ended up calling the out-of-hours service for our vets, and getting over to the vets main place.
It turned out she’s got aspirated pneumonia – basically, she’s coughed on whatever, breathed it in, and done so repeatedly. Last night she was running a temperature of 40°, which was the most concern to the vet. As he said at the time, “It’s not the highest temperature I’ve ever seen with a dog, but it’s not far off“.
She ended up with four injections – antibiotic, anti-inflammatory, antacid, and Metoclopramide to help food get processed.
She’s been back today to be checked again, on the knowledge that if her temperature wasn’t much better, she was going to be staying in for a couple of days with an IV drip etc. to sort her out. Fortunately, she is much better, temperature’s back down to normal, and it looks like the jabs have done their job.
We’re not out of the woods yet with her – we’ve got two weeks of antibiotics and Metoclopramide to give her, as well as three days of something that’ll help her cough up the shit that’s still in her lungs. But the indications are positive for now, and all told we’re much happier again about her health.
Reorganising and Rationalising
Posted: Fri 23 October, 2009 Filed under: Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Photography, Web Development, Writing Leave a comment »As part of the run-up to my birthday – and yet another of the “Five Year Plan” rundowns, as at that point I’ll be 3/5ths of the way through – I’ve been starting to think about some site organisations and rationalising a few bits of what I’m doing.
Of course, that doesn’t mean I’m anywhere even close to having sensible levels of life/work, but I’m trying to do something about some of it, at least. In some ways, weirdly, it means I’m going to have more to manage, but that’s OK too.
One of the projects I’d had on the cards this year was to merge my ‘creative’ sites together, so that the Photography and Writing stuff would all sit under one roof. I did it back in April/May time, and what it’s actually meant is that I’ve not added much to either site – which of course wasn’t the expected action at all. So I’m spending a bit of time separating the sites again, and going back to (almost) how they were a year ago. Retrograde steps or what?
In hindsight, while it was logical to think about putting the two ‘creative’ sides into one place, the two bits don’t actually go together all that well. Putting the two in one place led to more separation and confusion than the seperate sites did/will, and while in some aspects it’s now a wasted effort, at least I know for sure that the idea didn’t work, and (to some degree) why it didn’t. Sure, it’s annoying. But like the man said, “It’s better to regret something you have done than something you haven’t”.
There’s other bits of rationalisation and thought in the offing, but that’s the starting point. I’m sure I’ll write more of the other stuff over the next two weeks. For in two weeks time, I shall be 38. And that’s pretty scary in itself.
BNP at the BBC
Posted: Thu 22 October, 2009 Filed under: 1BEM, News, Thoughts Leave a comment »Despite all the protesting – and perhaps in spite of it – I don’t have an issue with the BNP’s Nick Griffin appearing tonight on the BBC’s Question Time. In fact, I think it’s quite amusing that the anti-fascist movement are the ones trying to stop someone they don’t like from being able to speak.
One of the taglines here on D4D is “I may not like what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”. This is a perfect example of that. I don’t like the BNP’s policies, nor most of the people who represent them. I feel/felt the same about UKIP, which (in my opinion) was just a posher version of the BNP when you got right down to it.
But I do think that Nick Griffin should appear on things like Question Time. In fact I’d go so far as to say it’s essential he appears.
After all, if he’s silenced and/or censored, you don’t get to see what a vile knobsock the man is. If he’s allowed to speak, people can hear the BNP’s policies and realise what hate-filled shit it is (And let’s face it, the BNP really should be supported by the Daily Mail) and decide not to vote for them. Yes, there’s the chance that some people will hear the vitriolic little pig-fucker and think he’s “Got the right idea” but there we go, that’s freedom of choice for you.
But let Nick Griffin speak out on behalf of his party – he’ll fuck things up for himself and his party far faster than any censorship can do it.
iPlayer access
Posted: Thu 22 October, 2009 Filed under: Domestic, Media Leave a comment »Tits.
I was going to download and watch BBC’s “Micro Men” on iPlayer, but have just discovered that it’s now past the seven days since transmission, so it’s no longer available.
I know that keeping lots of videos/files available for more than a week is a massive load of data, but every so often it’s a real ball-ache to only be able to get stuff for seven days. Particularly when I’m a forgetful twat.