Contemptuous

 It was a pretty rotten day weatherwise and it turned out that Angie ended up doing both dog walks. The muck weather is being exported, tariff-free, from the UK shovelling over clouds and rain.

So I concentrated on office work. Have been trying to get hold of our tax accountant who we were "forced by circumstances" to change to last year. The relationship has always been a bit unusual and we weren't exactly impressed. Had we not have had to change because of the PV on the roof making us a business, and having to do VAT returns every month, I would have found someone else.

I now desperately need an appointment to get the 2017 tax return done by Christmas but my phone calls and emails in the last weeks had been ignored. I suspected there may be a health issue and luckily had expressed my concerns in the emails when I wrote giving him notice that I would be forced to find someone else on 3rd if he didn't respond. This morning simply out of a strange belief in loyalty, phoned him again before I phoned someone else who was recommended to us last night. And he answered the phone - but only just. "Been in hospital for 4 weeks" .

 I did suggest he didn't need our work right now but he said he would manage it. So have an appointment next week but will see if we can then find a way to "divorce" in an amicable manner.

Also digitally filled away all the vehicle insurance papers for 2019. I don't suspect the UK system has changed - the entire German system is based on the calendar year (except for people who buy/sell during the year) and it includes the right to change insurer by 3oth November.

Changing telephone, mobile, internet, gas, electricity and insurance contracts using online services has become very popular. In principle, it annoys me that as a loyal customer of a supplying company, I have to threaten to change companies in order to get a good deal. It is well known that all you have to do is phone. I refuse to. I simply use an online comparison site and swap. They do all the paperwork, cancelling the old one and getting the info to the car registration authorities (no insurance and your car will be taken off the road). This year saved €275, primarily on the two cars and managed to halve the tractor and two trailers insurance (all non, exclusively sport, trailers have to be taxed and insured and a horse trailer that transports a bale of hay or straw without a horse is not being used for sport).

Only in the evening did I bother with my daily dose of Brexit when I switched on to see the result of the "Contempt of Parliament". The joke goes on unabated and the standard of the workings of parliament a disgrace which makes the Zimbabwe parliament look like an Oxbridge Debating Society.

I also got my dose of Gov.UK emails - Ten today, including one on the cost of customs/VAT administration for a no deal (and let's face it, one day, any deal that isn't Remain).

ALONE the paperwork, never mind the one-off training costs, VAT registration, recruitment, computer systems, personnel, buildings, carparks or anything else, is estimated by the government to cost UK business £6.5billion p.a. The UK paid the EU £9billion in 2017 for everything from space satellites to park benches on the cliffs of Lands End.

Now, the upside all the Moggs and Johnson's will shout is that the EU also has to pay £6.5 billion - for every import there is an export and for every export an import. For those without a calculator to hand, every man, woman & child in the UK will have to pay £108 p.a. for the customs/VAT administration - in the EU it's £14.

Who said they need us more than we need them. And if you think for one moment that trade deals with Zimbabwe or anywhere else will compensate, think again. Every transaction will still have customs whatever the trade deal.

I rather like the style of the former Attorney General Dominic Grieve along with his fellow traitors Anna Soubrey and Sarah Wollaston. I don't think anyone can accuse them of not being archetypal Tories but they are amongst the very very few who speak logically and are putting their country and constituents before their party or purse. I suspect Mrs May's Operation No-Deal Fear campaign may well work despite it being such a very bad deal for the country and get enough Tory MPs to vote so as to save their own backsides and member of parliament incomes.

Sad Sick Nation.