Iestyn Edwards Wonders...is it Lumpy or Runny?

Today marks the official end of the tax year. So, let's get the dreaded self-assessment tax return out of the way on the first day it's due, shall we? As if... Let's usher in the season of procrastination that lasts until January the 31st at 23.59:59. Except, sorry to sound swotty, but some fifteen years ago I made a pact with myself to never again spend those however many sleepless days at the end of January sweating in a receipts bath. I now do a mini-tax return each month from my bank statements, then simply tot up the running total on April 5th when I submit my HMRC self-assessment return.  'Oh, bog off!' I hear you all cry. And fair enough.  Of all the self-employed professions, performers and cab drivers most frequently underpay tax;  ergo  they are the two professions most likely to be audited by HMRC.  My advice on this is the Chinese proverb that says:  Don't listen to them, go see. I am not presenting the following examples as being definitiv...

'Your motivation is your pay packet at the end of the week.' Noel Coward. My actor mate Rob has done bloody well, starring in a number of west end and TV shows. When I met him in the mid-noughties he was the tech on my first gig at the Lawrence Batley theatre. He was twenty-one. Tall, handsome, funny; he'd appeared in musicals at the Lawrence Batley Theatre, in adverts, and in  Heartbeat  and  Coronation Street . He also had one of the most beautiful singing voices I had ever heard. Yet he would cry because he couldn't motivate himself to chase more work.  'I will motivate myself,' he said, 'but when the time is right. When I get more than one day off a week from teching the pantomime. When my sister’s back from her gap year in Africa and I don’t have to worry any more about her getting malaria or being Simba sushi. When I’ve done the round of auditions for drama colleges and one of them has said  yes . Though even if they all say  no  I’d probably hav...

In the shopping precinct, travelling up the escalator by the Sky TV begging booth, was a woman with riding hat hair, wearing vegan biscuit colour wool and navy-blue, artisanal bunion shoes. Below her on the escalator was her mix and match slightly pre-teen daughter.  (Though the daughter possibly lacked the bunion vibe to her shoes.) And what could  mother   be pointing out to her daughter; with that look all fairy-delled, magic dusted, morning glorious?   Could it be a unicorn queuing with the key to the all-comers loo in its little bejewelled hoof?  Or Mary Mother of our Lord materialising in the EE shop?   The Elves with a consignment of more bunion friendly footwear from the Shoemaker? What could it be?  I followed the woman's gaze.  To find she was all enraptured over, and by proxy enrapturing her daughter over, the Zara sale window. And I thought, 'Oh...'  Later, outdoors, I passed a father and son. They were dressed as I am: ...