Early morning ponderings about Del Boy's financial situation, in-depth fan theories, tax, eggs. This thread has it all!
I think we should be nice to tax inspectors. Unsung heroes they are. I read David Foster Wallace's final (incomplete) novel which was largely about the tedium and boredom of working at the IRS. It was brilliant. Called 'The Pale King'. Here's an except of Wallace's tax man hero thoughts:
"'Gentlemen, here is a truth: Enduring tedium over real time in a confined space is what real courage is. Such endurance is, as it happens, the distillate of what is, today, in this world neither I nor you have made, heroism ... By which,' he said, 'I mean true heroism, not heroism as you might know it from films or the tales of childhood. You are now nearly at childhood's end; you are ready for the truth's weight, to bear it. The truth is that the heroism of your childhood entertainments was not true valor. Gentlemen, welcome to the world of reality -- there is no audience. No one to applaud, to admire. No one to see you. Do you understand? Here is the truth -- actual heroism receives no ovation, entertains no one. No one queues up to see it. No one is interested ... True heroism is you, alone, in a designated workspace. True heroism is minutes, hours, weeks, year upon year of the quiet, precise, judicious exercise of probity and care -- with no one there to see or cheer. This is the world. Just you and the job, at your desk. You and the return, you and the cash-flow data, you and the inventory protocol, you and the depreciation schedules, you and the numbers.'"
In the fifteen years since I first saw the 2001 Christmas Special, I've never been able to find anyone knowledgeable enough to explain it to me.
I'll not be getting that midnight knock on the door will I?
) and finally the guest house, which was primarily my wife's business as I had had enough of self employment and went to work at a high school for over 20 years as a reprographics/audio/video technician, and that's what I retired from two years ago.
