Coo-ee. Hello, I’m still here. Some people think Elvis is still alive but, more worryingly for me, some people think I have popped my clogs.
Just because this column no longer appears on a Wednesday, some readers are apparently checking the obituaries.
One gracious lady came up to me in the cafe in Lews Castle on Monday and told me how glad she was to see that I was not poorly but sorry that I was no longer writing for the P&J.
She had rushed to a conclusion without checking any other day’s paper.
My namesake, Ian Maciver in Breaclete on Bernera, known to all as Kitch, can also relax.
He’s been asking why my distinguished features were no longer gracing the Wednesday edition. Will someone please tell Kitch to get the P&J on a Thursday? Tell him I’ve given him a name check so he should place a regular order. Deal?
Like Mark Twain, who was said to be dead or dying when he wasn’t, I find it quite funny.
Twain wrote a letter to a newsman saying: “The report of my death was an exaggeration.”
As I am writing this, I can just announce that I’m in fine fettle and confirmation of that will appear each Thursday right here.
The gracious lady at the castle then surprised me by asking if I knew the price of toilet roll.
I thought that was a trick question – like when they ask new MPs and old PMs if they know the price of milk to try and show they are out-of-touch.
I often buy milk and bread myself and I wouldn’t have a scooby about the cost. Nor have I studied the pricing and exigencies of the market in toilet tissue. Her question was all about the ridiculous VAT situation in this country.
That iniquitous tax is applied to pretty much everything you buy except those said to be “essential”.
They’re VAT-exempt. But what is essential? I did some research. It’s all bonkers.
Toilet roll is categorised by our government as “luxury goods” and VAT is charged at 20%, while caviar and helicopter rides are classed as essentials and are VAT exempt.
VAT on apparently “non-essential” personal hygiene products rakes in £247 million annually for the Treasury. Appalling.
This stupidity has an immense effect on vulnerable people. It’s not a case of just WANTING to wipe. We all need to do it.
I remember turning up at new digs in Glasgow. It was late and the shops were shut.
Within two minutes, I discovered the bathroom had no toilet paper and all I had to use was the money in my pocket.
So I did what had to be done. It was tough and messy but, to me, being clean was essential. Best 27p I ever spent.
This tax is an ass – an assortment of cruel and pointless errors and misclassifications.
Potato crisps are categorised as confectionery and 20% VAT is applied – but tortilla chips are not. And your nuts?
Nuts sold in shops have zero VAT if they’re still in their shells. However, VAT applies if they are not in shells, and roasted or salted. That really is nutty.
I think it’s HMRC that administers our VAT, isn’t it? Enough said.
Not enough though has been said about the Free Church of Scotland running a pop-up cafe on, wait for it, the Sabbath.
In an inspired piece of practical Christianity, the kirk in Stornoway has been inviting HebCelt festival-goers who were tired and had perhaps imbibed deeply to breakfast on the Sunday before the ferry to Ullapool. And, wait again, it’s all free. Not even a collection? Nay, sayeth the Free. “Put thy sponduliks away and come thee and break bread, and smokey bacon, with us.”
They’ve done it for a few years. Well done to Minister James Maciver.
I hear there were rumblings of disapproval at first within the congregation but the now-retiring minister was able to remind them that doing good on any day with a y in it is allowed.
Perhaps he is rightly fed up with his kirk’s longstanding reputation of being an anti-fun denomination – and the sensible ones won the day. Yay. Extending a helping hand to the weary traveller is even set down as an exemplar in a big, thick book I read some time back. Well done, Rev James.
I’m still trying to get over the fact that successive governments of this country are still classifying toilet paper as non-essential. What are they thinking?
These politicians should remember that the political power they wield today is like a roll of something long, strong and very, very long. It is exactly like toilet paper. It only seems important when you don’t have it.
Iain Maciver is a former broadcaster and news reporter from the Outer Hebrides
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