Arse words

There is a great article today on the BBC website entitledSmuggled Cigarettes Cost Billions. In case you are in any doubt as to exactly what it is about, you should know that tobacco is taxed so heavily in UK that illegally imported cigartettes have become a boom market and a real problem for the customs and excise police. I haven't smoked for years, but I think a packet of 20 cigarettes is somewhere around £5 now. So that would be about US$8.

Lets look at the article line by line shall we...

The government is losing billions in VAT each year to tobacco smugglers and more resources are needed to tackle the problem, says a key Commons committee.

That's how the report opens. I can see the point they are trying to make here, but I would phrase it slightly differently. I would say, "The government is failing to make the billions they had hoped to on tobacco duty, and smuggling has become more prolific due to the huge disparity between British and European prices. We therefore want to use more tax payers' money to prosecute and imprison those people responsible for the smuggling".

Customs lost around £2.9bn in Britain in 2003-2004 and the figure is expected to increase in 2004-2005.

Or, put another way, "The government would have made £2.9bn in the 2003-2004 period, had people bought all the illegally imported tobacco in Britain".

The Committee of Public Accounts also says the estimated 12bn cigarettes smuggled into the UK pose an increased health risk to smokers.

Or, "We think the public are too stupid to realise that the same health risk applies to British as to imported cigarettes, and we hope that suggesting that illegally imported tobacco is more dangerous will both appeal to the anti smoking lobby and scare people away from foreign imports."

They say a campaign is needed to expose the risks of poor quality tobacco.

Or, "We want a campaign to make importing more difficult so that we can raise tax revenue on tobacco, but feeding the public some bullshit about poor quality imports will probably have a more positive effect."

"Tobacco smugglers cheat the taxpayer," said committee chairman Edward Leigh MP.

Or, "Tax payers who buy illegal imports actually save huge amounts of tax. The government on the other hand cheats tax payers by imposing huge amounts of duty."

I'm not going to go on, but if you read the rest of this rubbish you will find that the government's key concern is apparently the health of the nation which is being ruined by counterfit cigarettes manufactured in the Middle East. This makes me wonder what all that crap about loosing tax revenue and costing the tax payer money, is all about. If they lowered duty on cigarettes to reasonable levels like the rest of Europe, they could solve the problem immediately without any cost.

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I think Ginny Weasley is a horcrux. She's a seventh child, and we all know that seven is a very magical number. She might even be a seventh child of a seventh child, which would be very magical indeed. She was also present when the diary horcrux was destroyed, and she'd be a good choice for a horcrux because Harry would possibly have to kill her to destroy it. She's also been possessed by Voldemorte in the form of Tom Riddle.

Dumbledore postulated that Voldemorte needed one more horcrux when he murdered Lilly and James. He may not have been able to make the Horcrux at that time because he nearly killed himself trying to murder Harry. However, he might have made it when he killed Lilly and James, and if he did, it might be still there because he was in no position to hide it at the time. So, if I was Harry, I'd be off to Godric's Hollow.

Also, bearing in mind that Ravenclaw's locket was hidden at a location significant to Voldemorte, it seems reasonable to assume that the missing horcruxes are hidden in equally significant places. That would mean the orphanage, Hogwarts, the Riddle house, his mother's house, and maybe Bourgin and Burke's.

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My contract has been extended again. I can't decide whether this is good or bad. I was looking forward to a few days off, but it's all money in the bank I suppose. I still need something permanent. I was actually quite busy today.

I managed to come to work today with the dragon's keys in my pocket, which means she can't leave the house. I feel bad about that. I put them in my pocket this morning when I opened the back door. I was being a good husband and father however. Little guy slept until 5.30 this morning and I fed him and put him back to sleep before I went to work. That meant the dragon could sleep until 8.30. How cool is that?