Light posting for a couple of weeks ...

I'm afraid that my posts here are going to very very light, although perhaps not entirely non-existent, over the next couple of weeks. As always around this time of year, I have been putting off really getting down to do my tax filing for the year to 5th April 2007, but if I'm not to be rushing around too much during the latter part of September, now is the time to get started on this boring task. I like to get the tax return in by the end of September so that the Inland Revenue do the calculation, even though I always do my own independent calculation so that I can cross-check it with what I am told I owe - I saw the first broadcast this year of the amazingly cringe-making 'Tax doesn't have to be taxing' advertisement on TV a couple of weeks ago, and that brought home to me that time is creeping on.

Luckily I have all the paper-work to hand to do the number-crunching necessary to fill in the form. Once I get this year's filing ready for mailing (hopefully by about 10 September) I must turn my attention to converting the spreadsheets/databases I use to a format suitable for use on my 'Vista' laptop, as a lot of the software I have been using on 'XP' (and previously on '98') no longer works on the new platform. Whilst most the actual data is readable on 'Vista' compatible software, there are certain anomalies which I must address, before I can rely on it; I am still working on getting the extracting of information between various kinds of spreadsheets, which I use for different purposes, to work properly. It's a real bind.

So from tomorrow morning I shall be busy completing my paper-work filing (I have a tray piled high with things that have been dealt with, but not filed in their proper folders - I have got a little lazy with this in recent weeks), which should allow me tomorrow afternoon or Tuesday morning to get down to inputting figures into the spreadsheets (in my 'XP' laptop) which will throw out the various income headings and tax calculations, etc. As a result the time I have for blogging will be severely reduced - but there are many good blogs to look at in my Blogroll in the column at left, if you care to.

As for me, I usually have videos playing in the background in my study whilst doing this work and I have a whole library of discs and tapes to choose from - I find this helps make this annual task on behalf our 'Darling'(*) Chancellor slightly less tedious, if no less irritating.

(*) For non-British readers, this is actually the man's name, not in any way how I feel about him! Ho! Ho!