Friday is the deadline for filing your 2001/02 tax return here in the UK and as usual I’ve left it to the last minute. Well, almost the last minute. I filed my return today using the Inland Revenue’s on-line filing service for the first time.

The system worked well for me, despite receiving some bad press earlier in the year regarding its security. I was able to complete the tax return form quite easily and more quickly than in previous years because the system only asked me questions that are relevant to my tax situation. I didn’t have to read the entire form in order to work out which bits apply to me. Also, it calculated my tax bill immediately, which inspired a degree of confidence that didn’t exist in the past. Previously it was difficult to know if you had completed the return correctly simply because there was no way of checking it without consulting a tax professional. Now, it’s checked and the numbers crunched in a matter of seconds, and when it turns out as you expected, it’s all very reassuring.

Although the deadline for filing is January 31st, the tax year always ends on April 5th in the UK, and a few weeks ago I wondered how this odd year-end came to be. Thanks to the Internet, I found out. The Notes & Queries section of the Guardian once asked the same question, and Luke of Birmingham had an interesting reply:

The calendar year used to start in March. Hence “September” (7th), “October”, “November” (9th) and “December” (10th). Perhaps the first month of the year was set aside for producing accounts, end of year reconciliations, business plans, mission statements and blue-skies thinking – all important elements of a successful Roman business. Quis enumerabit ipsos fabarum enumeratores?

However, the definitive answer must be that of the Inland Revenue itself, which much to my surprise includes the question on its FAQ:

7. Why does the tax year start on April 6?

The reason for the tax year running from 6 April to 5 April is primarily historical and has its origin in the switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar in 1752.
It had been calculated in the 16th Century that the Julian calendar had lost 9 days since its introduction in 46 BC. Most of Europe changed to the new, more accurate, Gregorian calendar in 1582, but this country continued with the old one until September 1752 by which time the error had increased to 11 days.
These 11 days were ‘caught up’ by being removed from the calendar altogether – 2 September was followed by 14 September. In order not to lose 11 days’ tax revenue in that tax year, though, the authorities decided to tack the missing days on at the end, which meant moving the beginning of the tax year from the 25 March, Lady Day, (which since the Middle Ages has been regarded as the beginning of the legal year) to 6 April.
The dates were adopted for income tax on its re-imposition in 1842 and have not changed since.

I received a new driving licence today, and the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) included the following note:

Important Notice
Plastic Wallets

DVLA no longer issue plastic wallets with photocard driving licenses. This decision was taken primarily to help minimise the administrative costs of issuing licenses to the public. The Agency has also received numerous complaints from members of the public about the size of the plastic wallet [my emphasis]. Consequently, many drivers discard the wallet and use a different way of protecting their licence.

Please note: Old plastic wallets sent in to the Agency cannot be returned.

Who on earth would go to the trouble of complaining about the plastic wallet supplied with your driver’s licence? If you don’t like it, discard it by all means, but complain? Why? Do you really think the civil servants working at the DVLA care whether you like it or not? What a complete waste of time.

Who said the British don’t like to complain? Clearly that’s not true anymore.

P.S. - I’m pleased to say I didn’t return my old plastic wallet, so I still have one; but please don’t tell the DVLA!

It’s been unusually cold and wintry in London the last few days (cold is relative - around here it means 0°C). In fact, we woke to a light dusting of snow yesterday morning, but it had all gone by the end of the day. This morning it snowed quite heavily for a couple of hours and there is now an inch and a half collected on the ground and in our garden.

As I watched the midday news on television, I noticed something that struck me as very odd when I first moved to the UK ten years ago. One of the reporters taped his report while the snow was falling at its heaviest, and he was pictured holding an umbrella above his head while speaking. He’s not the first person I’ve seen behaving so strangely. What makes the British think that an umbrella is appropriate protection from all types of precipitation?

To a Canadian, fending off the snow with an umbrella just looks ridiculous. After all, snow doesn’t make you wet unless it melts, and that doesn’t happen until you go inside a warm building. Besides, blowing snow easily circumvents any umbrella, making it useless. Think about it. When was the last time you saw pictures of any Inuit (aka Eskimos) carrying umbrellas? You didn’t, because they don’t. Umbrellas are pointless in the snow, and the fact that the British attempt to use them just shows you how unprepared they are for real winter when it occasionally hits them.

[Update – Various news organisations have reported that the snowfall in London today was the heaviest for nine years.]

When I was studying Psychology at university 20 years ago, one of my professors told me that after much consideration he had concluded that most natural phenomena and all human behaviours are cyclical. “Everything”, he said, “waxes and wanes.”

He cited the example of a driver given a ticket for speeding. Having been penalised, the driver reduces his speed in order not to get punished again. After a while, however, the driver forgets about his previous violation, and the effect of the punishment wears off. Consequently his speed begins to creep up to its previous, normal level, and before long he gets caught speeding once again. The second penalty produces the same response as the original punishment - the driver once again reduces his speed, but again only temporarily. In this way the cycle repeats itself continuously.

An article in the most recent weekend edition of the Financial Times made me wonder if this pattern is applicable to property. In What your money can buy in Britain’s best place to live journalist Christian Dymond “finds out what is selling - and who is buying - in the Northumberland market town of Alnwick”.

The article caught my eye because last November I celebrated Thanksgiving with friends who currently live in the village of Longhoughton, Northumberland, which is less than four miles from Alnwick. At the time I was surprised to learn that Alnwick had recently been chosen as the best place to live in Britain, but the FT article confirms the story and attributes it to a recent survey in Country Life magazine (let’s simply ignore the implicit assumption that the best place to live has to be in the “country”).

History, relatively low house prices, location, local identity, a low crime rate, schooling, health care and the local farmers market all contributed to Alnwick’s pole position. Alnwick Castle, used as a location for the two Harry Potter films, has been the seat of the Dukes of Northumberland since 1309, while its £7m garden project has brought major benefits to the town.

A final, clinching attribute, said Country Life, was that Northumberland is projected to have a smaller increase in new households over the next 20 years than any other county. Until 2006, at least, the figure given by Northumberland County Council is about 700 a year. And that is in a county of 2,000 square miles, with a population of just over 300,000, the majority of whom live in the south-east corner.

So, Alnwick has been chosen as the best place to live in Britain because few people are going to live there. Alnwick is popular because it will remain unpopular - or at least relatively unpopulated, for whatever reason - in the future.

I like that circular irony very much, and if it’s true, we can predict with some confidence that Alnwick will cease being the best place to live once it has become sufficiently popular to attract lots of people. What goes around, comes around. Everything waxes and wanes.