Paper Tiger

“The same procedure as last year, Miss Sophie?“
“The same procedure as every year, James“


When you come to Germany for the first time and happen to speak to a local you are almost certain to be confronted with the above lines. You shrug your shoulders and there follows a laughing: “Dinner for One”


Again you give a sympathetic smile and ask yourself if they had hit the schnapps bottle before breakfast. You then pretend to be studying closely the incomprehensible Munich Underground ticket machine instructions, hoping they will go away.


Don’t discern they mean well, they were just relating a story they have heard since their first New Year’s Eve in the crib. It’s from an English language, black & white 1963 short (18 min.) film made in Germany but based on a British 1920’s sketch. It’s the most often repeated TV program in the world shown from the Faroe Islands to Australia but never in the USA and probably only on Aberdeen loacal TV in the UK. Denmark TV once tried not broadcasting it but had to give way to the protests.
 
Well the annual “final reminder” popped through the letter box this week from the Tax Office. Same procedure as every year. Got two weeks to get the 2013 return done. Don’t mess with the tax office: last year they got the very prominent 1974 World Cup winning footballer and President of Bayern Munich FC, locked behind bars for a few years. Since this year he gets day release, as Nogbad will confirm, from the same prison Hitler was locked up in 1923 and where he wrote “Mein Kampf”.


Panic ensues, phone line hot to the tax accountants. Need the papers by ……


So heads down and through the piles of invoices, files, shelves … Is that March 2013 till receipt for a bottle of paracetamol for my headache or as pain killer for the horses’ foot wound? Medication for humans can be off-set but not for animals, however the animals public liability insurance can be. Germany apparently has one of the most complicated tax structures in the world and thus tax accountants are very commonly used even by simple PAYE people like us. As soon as you do something like buy a holiday flat and rent it out to others, you need as much tax advice as Amazon and Starbucks combined.


Result of the tax laws is that you keep every scrap of paper. However in my case, it’s even worse: I keep everything! No… I mean EVERYTHING.
Today in one of drawers found the documents shown in the Blip….Yes everything.


A railway ticket issued in London for a trip from Berlin to Hamburg in 1989 together with the DDR visum issued on the train to allow passage through East Germany. Only used the train that once on the recommendation of someone in the bar of the Munich Hilton who said instead of flying in & out of Berlin, I had to experience the East/West Germany border crossing check. (Was a few months later to repeat this with Nogbad on foot at Checkpoint Charlie)


The Air Europe bonus miles wallet for the 36 Gatwick-Munich return flights in 13 months between August 1989 and September 1990. About half of these accompanied by Nogbad. Air Europe went broke before I could redeem the bonus miles! Both Nogbad and I had company cars at Gatwick and Munich and the Mon/Fri trips were like taking the bus. I remember one Saturday morning back in Sussex, the phone rang. It was Nogbad who had been up in Hamburg that week “Ummm. I’m sorry I hope it’s OK but had no choice…fog at Hamburg cancelled flight, but Lufthansa did have a Senator Class flight to Heathrow and yes, it was a bit costly getting to Gatwick to pick up the car”. Only time Nigel wished the pilot had taken a 180° wrong turn – he was somewhat impressed by Lufthansa Senator Class even though we were lucky in those days to fly Business Class as standard.


With Greece in the headlines, a pre EU, 1992 passport stamp to allow taking a car in to the country or more importantly to check I left with it and didn’t sell it there on the black market. We all know how rigid the tax laws are there!


Back page of another passport with the details of foreign currency taken in and returned to UK. In April 1975, £50 for first overseas holiday with girlfriend Annabel, in Greece. Bit disturbing that the same amount was “refunded” 10 days later. Did I really let her paying everything or was Greece so cheap in those days? The next entry on my birthday in 1975 is a mystery. I did have a badly kept diary at that time that has nothing entered but a week later had 3 weeks holiday, the middle week with Annabel on a hired cruiser on the Norfolk Broads. Perhaps we had planned something else and it fell through. We both worked in London but our respective parents were in Norfolk and the Wroxham/Horning area was our regular weekend pub/disco stamping ground. I do remember pottering around at 5mph was very relaxing but quite why we went for holiday on home territory? Ahh.. now I remember! Seems by 1979 I was earning more despite by then being married!


Then another passport with USA immigration entry visa from 31/8/1997. A business trip to San Francisco which Angie accompanied me on but she had to pay the flight. So we looked for the cheapest possible and enlisted the help of good friend Christa who worked in a travel agency. She got us a good deal – Air France: Munich-Paris-San Francisco. Waiting at Paris for the flight when the news came through Princess Diana had just died down the road.

 
Talking Of Christa: she follows my Blip from time to time and being a perfect English speaker can even understand the gist of what I write. Also being a past visitor to the “island” and with friends in Derbyshire, (I think),she is fairly well acquainted with British traditions. She has even made me a pot of her homemade Lemon Curd! She had trouble a while ago with Tochterpleach’s use of “wee” She knew the word but the meaning somehow didn't fit in the sentence. Luckily she knows how to use google. "Dreich" is to follow when the weather fits, as a test of her newly won Scottish knowledge.


Over the last year or so I have tried unsuccessfully to get Christa and husband Michi to join up. Michi is an accomplished photographer and spends every minute he can on travelling the world, until recently as a “rucksack” type but now with increasing years, making use of Christa’s knowledge as a trained travel agent to pre book the odd night in a hotel. He’s not a “sun, sea, sand and s**” type, but wants adventure in far flung lands and the more exotic the better. So he often has wonderful photos from interesting out of the way places. He always sends us a postcard and they are part of my paper filing.


Today Christa gave way and registered so that she could have better access and add the odd comment directly rather than sending emails. Probably some of my regulars may see a New Follower on their journals, maybe even two. Look out for PennyRider and Fussballfreak. For the first 10 years I knew the two of them, they would have mocked anyone who showed a tiny bit of interest in football as an uncultured lout. Since the 2006 World Cup in Germany, you aren't allowed to even phone when an international game is on TV. I don't know if they put on the strip when watching at home. This year they visited us one day during the World Cup but only on condition that they could watch the game.


Now back to the Aldi till receipts … how do we get the dog food through as a tax deduction? ... Flash!...have you ever rescued anyone?