Once upon a time (and a very good time it was), there was a very optimistic young shepherd who was supposed to look after the village sheep. Everyone liked him because he was so positive, except for some silly curmudgeonly old farts who kept saying, “What about the wolves?”
“Wolves?” said the young shepherd, “What wolves? Look, this is a no-brainer, all right? These sheep are all going to give birth to triplets in the spring, right, including the rams, and that makes all the sheep worth a gold piece each.”
He was a kind young shepherd too. When some villagers couldn’t afford to buy a whole sheep, he sold little pieces of paper allowing them to own a leg or a tail or even an ear. It was great. Everybody felt very rich.
Then there were a few odd incidents; a couple of sheep had suddenly disappeared. The sheep dogs couldn’t explain it, though they seemed unusually uninterested in food the day after the disappearances. They denied that any such thing as a wolf had been seen, despite a few bits of grey fur stuck in the brambles. The smartest sheepdog explained that wolves were actually just legends and the probability of such things existing, given the size of the mountains and the rarity of sightings was effectively nil, and therefore they didn’t exist.
But still, people were a little nervous. So to help everybody, the young shepherd started selling a new kind of paper. This was a Collateralised Sheep Obligation: instead of buying an actual leg of an actual sheep, investors could buy a notional bone from the averaged bone-yield of the entire herd, should any (mythological) wolves attack them. Once they realised that holding a bit of average sheep was much safer than owning an actual one, the villagers loved this idea and they all invested heavily, even though they had to borrow from each other to do it.
So the price of CSOs soared to such heights that some villagers started pawning their chairs and tables to invest in them and then borrowing against their holdings of CSOs.
“What if the wolves come back?” asked the curmudgeonly old farts in the pub.
“Wolves?” said the sheepdogs. “Those silly old stories. In our modern system of scientific shepherding there will be no more wolf attacks ever.” And off they went to have dinner with some friends of theirs who were quite like them but greyer.
So the villagers carried on buying CSOs. Often they borrowed against the ones they’d bought by borrowing against the ones they already had.
Just a few curmudgeonly old farts (or COFs) still sat tutting in the back of the pub.
“I saw something grey lurking about by the sheep pen,” said the old man, “I’m absolutely certain of it.”
“No, you didn’t,” said the young shepherd quickly. He kept an eye on the COFs because of the bad effect they had on villager morale. As cover he bought another round of drinks. “Look, it was a rabbit, right? The sheepdogs say so. In fact they’ve just rated the whole herd AAIAAA+++ on contravulpine protection levels – you can buy a certificate to prove it.”
Some of the drinkers bought the bits of paper he was waving and some didn’t.
“What about the big wolf attack we had last year?” asked the worst COF of the lot. In fact the young shepherd privately thought of him as a COB (curmudgeonly old bastard, obviously). “When the whole herd nearly got wiped out? And nobody would lend anything to each other and we all nearly starved to death? What about that?”
“No, no, gramps,” said the young shepherd, “That was a once in a generation attack of rabies in the rabbit population which was basically just a correction that can’t happen again.”
“Yes but what if the wolves…”
“Rabbits.”
“All right, rabbits, rabid rabbits if you insist, young fellermelad, what if the rabbits do it again? Eh?”
The young shepherd lured the COB into a corner with a pint of cider. “Listen gramps,” he said quietly, “Let’s say, just for argument’s sake, that the impossible happens and the rabbits – not wolves, which are contrary to all our scientific ovine-aggregative modelling – let’s say that the rabbits accidentally bump a few sheep so they die of heart attacks…”
“What’ll happen to all of us, eh? We own them sheep?”
“No, no, the risk is already factored into the price of your CSO squareds, all right? So anyway, if the worst does happen and the herd looks like it’s…er… populationally challenged, what I’ll do is…” The young shepherd looked even shiftier than normal and dropped his voice to a whisper, “What I’ll do is I’ll go and ask the King for more sheep, OK? And he’s got to give them to me because… well, just because. OK? Got that?”
“So what’s in it for him?”
“He’s the King. And he can’t let the herds go down or it looks bad for him.”
“So like last year he’ll give us more sheep, only some of them will be a bit… goatish.”
“Er… no, they’ll be good sheep.”
“Where’s he getting them from then?”
“The royal herd, OK? And he can get more from the other royals, OK, because they’re all friends. All right?”
The COB lowered his voice even more. “What happens,” he asked, “when they all run out of sheep because the wolves… sorry, rabbits… have et all the sheep?”
The young shepherd just shook his head and laughed. “Sorry, gramps,” he said, “You just don’t understand modern shepherding, do you?”
Gramps nodded, drank all the cider the young shepherd had bought him and went off and planted an allotment. Which he fortified.

DR EVILCORNISHROADWORKS

Trying to get from Truro to Carbis Bay the other day brought this on…

[OPENING SEQUENCE – A MONTAGE OF EXPENSIVE HELICOPTER SHOTS OF CORNISH HILLS LOOKING PRETTY, PENDENNIS CASTLE, THE EDEN PROJECT ETC ETC]

VOICE OVER (BY THAT MAN WHO HAS BEEN GARGLING WITH RUSTY NAILS AND SULPHURIC ACID SINCE THE AGE OF 6)
Cornwall. Gateway to the south west…
(HE’S INTERRUPTED BY MUTTERING IN THE BACKGROUND)
Oh. OK. It is the Southwest. So where is it exactly?
(MORE MUTTERING)
Right. Cornwall. The Southwest. A helluva long way from the M25, where they eat Cornish pasties and cream teas… Look, buddy, I am getting on with it…

(A DIFFERENT VOICE INTERRUPTS, WITH A CORNISH ACCENT AND LESS BUTCH GARGLING HABITS):
Cornwall, where the mines are gone, the fish are gone, so it’s back to wrecking, me ansums.

(FIRST VOICE SHOVES HIM AWAY)
Or tourism. Tourists. Happy friendly folk travelling down the A30 with their money in innocent search of a pasty, a cream tea or a surfing beach to be sick on…

[QUICK CUT TO THE A30 CONED OFF AROUND REDRUTH, DIVERSION SIGNS, PRETTY TOWN CENTRES BEING DUG UP. LOTS OF FANCY ZOOMING AND CUTTING AND SCREECHY MUSIC.]

(RUSTY NAIL GARGLING) VOICE OVER: Somewhere in a bunker deep in the heart of County Hall…

[CLOSE UP OF DR EVILCORNISHROADWORKS GOING "Mwah ha ha ha!"]
[WE'RE LOOKING AT A WAR ROOM. SMART CUTE GIRLS IN 40'S HAIRSTYLES AND TIGHT MILITARY BLOUSES ARE BUSILY PUSHING MINIATURE ORANGE CONES AND BULLDOZERS ALL OVER A ROAD MAP OF CORNWALL WITH THOSE LONG WOODEN PUSHERS. OTHERS PUSH LOTS OF TOY CARS INTO IMMENSE TRAFFIC JAMS.

[OVERLOOKING THE WAR ROOM IS DR EVILCORNISHROADWORKS IN HIS JAMES BOND STYLE' VILLAIN-GALLERY]

DR EVILCORNISHROADWORKS:
Mwah ha ha ha!

[THERE'S A KNOCK AT THE DOOR. A MINION IN A BLACK BOILER SUIT CARRYING A GUN OPENS THE DOOR. A DELIVERYMAN COMES IN TROLLEYING SOME VERY HEAVY BOXES AND CARRYING A CLIPBOARD.

DELIVERYMAN:
Your usual delivery from the Scottish Tourist Board, sir.

[MORE MINIONS OPEN UP THE BOXES AND GOLD INGOTS AND BUNDLES OF BANKNOTES FALL OUT. DR EVILCORNISHROADWORKS TAKES THE CLIPBOARD AND SIGNS.]

DR EVILCORNISHROADWORKS:
Where’s the Welsh Tourist Board’s contribution then?

DELIVERYMAN:
It’s on its way, sir. Just got held up by the roadworks on the A30…

DR EVILCORNISHROADWORKS:
Mwah ha ha ha. Mwah ha ha haha ha!

Don’t believe me? Just try driving round Cornwall during the summer tourist season, then.

HOW NOT TO SELL THINGS TO ME

To the bloke who tried to sell me double-glazing on my doorstep:
So sorry I wasn’t polite enough to you. I work at home and I’m constantly being bugged by people who want to sell me something at the door or on the phone, but immediately deny that they’re selling anything at all because they have a script and the managers told them to stick to it, especially with gormless housewives like me because then you can con them with doubletalk and bullshit about £2,500 cashbacks (on an expenditure of what, exactly?) and sell them loads of double glazing they don’t want and can’t afford but hey, who cares, right? We still get our commission. Yes, banking and mortgage broking experience very acceptable.
Incidentally, cold-calling me on the phone gets you one of two responses. If you’re stupid enough to try and be pally with me by calling me “Pat” (a shortener for my given name of Patricia which I have ALWAYS hated), you’ll get a sub-zero voice temperature. Then you’ll get the information that I have a policy never to buy anything from a cold call because I assume that if the company needs to cold-call, their product must be crap. If you are at least polite, you’ll get the same response, but nicer.
In fact if this particular bloke at the door could have come off his high horse long enough to realise I was actually asking him for his card so I could call him back when I wasn’t working, perhaps he could even have sold me something since my conservatory needs work. But I’d upset him by asking if he was selling something (no! no!) and then I’d been rude enough to point out that a “free quote” bloody well should be free so it isn’t exactly a selling point. So after he’d snapped his smart little plastic folder open to find No Business Cards (his manager needs to be shot, by the way, it’s sort of a basic tool), off he stropped with passing shots about how he doesn’t need to be spoken to like this.
Laddy boy, in your whiter than white shirt and your hatchet face full of sourly offended pride: the happy days of mortgage broking are gone. You are now a door-to-door salesman and even if your shirt is white, you still have to try to be friendly. My dog was being very friendly, but then she loves everyone. If someone says they’re busy working and could they have your card, that is an opening, a lead, and what you do is you say, “I’m very sorry I bothered you, here’s my card, I’ll come back and talk it over with you when it’s more convenient for you.” Then you have a fighting chance of making the sale and getting the commission.
I speak as one who spent a year selling newspaper advertising over the phone and I was just as bad at it as you are because I too was full of arrogance and contempt. As a sales technique this really doesn’t work. Maybe double-glazing isn’t really your field. Maybe you should go back to mortgage broking? Oh sorry, I forgot. That’s sort of a bit dead now.
Ha. Ha.

OK, you read it here first. Mr Cameron? President Obama? Are you listening, gents?

Here is how you solve the problems of megarich scumbags who can get away with paying less tax than their cleaners and chauffeurs because they can afford officeblocks full of accountants and lawyers to tweak their affairs. Oh, while still reserving the right to whinge about dreadful public services and the national debt.
Yes, they are scumbags because they do not pay their full whack. I’m not accusing anybody of cheating on their taxes because the megarich don’t need to, that’s what expensive accountants and lawyers are for. They just get away with whatever they can. Which can be a remarkable amount (check out the non-domiciled UK peers).
But this is a free society and if that’s the way the law (after a lot of lobbying by the rich) is set up, why shouldn’t they take advantage of it? After all, there’s absolutely no reward for actually paying up a fair share of your wealth in tax except the self-congratulatory glow of knowing that you’re supporting the expensively peaceful and safe civil society that helped make you rich. Which, frankly, ain’t worth beans to Homo economicus, as any economist will tell you. So here’s the big idea.
What we need is (ta da! Drumroll)
The Taxpayer Championships.
There are no runners-up, no shortlists. The individual person who paid the most tax in any particular tax-year is the Champion Taxpayer. His/her reward is a one year tax holiday, providing he/she remains domiciled in the awarding country for the following three years. Also lots of adulatory publicity, top spot in the Sunday Times Rich List and a big trophy if he wants it.
To be fair to the non-megarich there can be another event: the person who paid the most tax as a proportion of income can get the same prize of a one-year tax holiday (with the same proviso that he stays domiciled in the awarding country for the following three years).
And there could be a small non-listed company event too – a friend of mine who knows more about these things than I do, said that it wouldn’t do to let multi-nationals enter the game because they can afford several officeblocks full of accountants and they’d find a way to cheat. So no multinationals or quoted companies, just the small and medium-sized businesses that do most of the hard taxpaying. Same two categories as well: Champion Taxpayer (gross) and Champion Taxpayer (in ratio to earnings).
Think of the publicity gains to the noble people who enter by paying their proper level of taxes. Instead of joining all the other bonus-getters as the Nation’s Favourite Scumbags (after Politicians, Lawyers and Estate Agents) they would be heroes. Ditto for companies. Only strong stable companies can afford to pay a lot of tax. If a company never appeared in the entrants, its shareholders might reasonably wonder why not. Also the year’s tax holiday would give the business a nice bonus that would be directly linked to their competence as companies and their public spirit.
If it was handled right, the Taxpayer Championships could rival the Oscars for glitz and the international art market for outrageous my-wad’s-bigger-than-yours oneupmanship.
Non-dom foreigners would be falling over themselves to be domiciled here for tax, so they could show how much tax they pay. It would stop being clever to pay practically no tax on a huge income.
The only problem would be: how ever would the Treasury spend all the extra money they’d get? (Answers on a postcard please…)

WHY I LOVE AMERICANS

I’m just back from a book tour in the United States, promoting my new sixteenth century crime novel, A MURDER OF CROWS (fifth in the Carey series). Now then. A curmudgeonly old-fashioned ranter like me might be expected to use this opportunity to have a good old shout about American-awful-this and the ghastly-Yankee-that.
Nope. Sorry. I have plenty of reservations about the vast politico-military-industrial behemoth that is “America” but about Americans, not right now. They’re very good at criticising themselves, mind, which I’ll get back to as one of their strengths, but first, my reasons for being so uncharacteristically lovey-dovey.
1. Their airports work. This is important when you’re on a book tour from bookshop to bookshop in different states. I hit six of them in ten days – Washington Dulles, Detroit, Houston, Phoenix, San Diego and San Francisco. They were all of them clean, pleasant, easy to use and if you didn’t know something you could find someone who did and who was also willing to tell you. The flights pretty much took off on time and if they didn’t there was an apology and (much more important) an explanation. There was air conditioning that worked. The toilets were spotlessly clean and everything in them worked, excepting on automatic towel dispenser I forget where, for which the attendant apologised.
So coming back into Heathrow was a culture shock. Mainly because of its maddening air of naff sleaziness, the feeling that the place has dandruff on its shoulders and a fag still stuck to its bottom lip. For instance: is there nothing they could do about the filthy, patched and stuck-down-with-gaffer-tape disgrace of a carpet in immigration where you queue up to show your passport? Really? I mean, it would probably cost, ooh, several grand to get some new industrial haircord laid, as opposed to however many squillions Terminal 5 cost.
2. Generally, Americans are polite, nay, courteous. Even their children are polite. A teeny tiny little girl sitting on her mom’s lap next to me on a plane, knew to say “Thank you ma’am,” when I passed her something. Nobody called me “dear” or “Pat” or “Patricia”, ever. Oh yes, my publisher did call me “my dear” a couple of times, but seeing as he’s my publisher and a darling himself, I think that’s fine. Don’t get me wrong: my friends can call me what they like and often do. Strangers who are taking my money in exchange for a product or service may not because they are not my friends. The Americans understand this and so your whole day slips along on an emollient base of courtesy and it’s just so much more pleasant. Yes, of course, I know it’s not sincere, I know they’re trained to do it, I know they don’t really respect me at all (and why should they?) It’s just so… relaxing.
Also they are polite and courteous to each other in stressful circumstances. The one carbuncle on the face of every US airport is the security check with its queues for scanners and its byzantine semi-religious rules about liquids and shoes. It’s tedious, it’s pettifogging, it’s inconvenient and for the non-exhibitionist like the lady in front of me with the hip replacement, it can be agonisingly embarassing. I also doubt it does much good against seriously organised terrorists and probably does some harm by encouraging complacency. I grudgingly accept its psychological and political necessity. But there are the Americans patiently waiting in line, slipping shoes off, unloading their pockets, putting stuff meekly into grey plastic trays. San Francisco security unerringly identified my bra as a security risk (twice) and I was asked to wait in a glass box presumably intended to protect everyone else from my exploding underwear – fair enough. Exploding underwear has been tried, after all. The women who frisked me very thoroughly twice were also courteous and professional and had none of that pervy self-righteousness of the average Euro-security person.
3. They are smart and surprisingly open. They listen (I love this about anybody). They ask intelligent questions. Idiots in Europe think all Americans are stupid. This is so far from true, I think it might be a quiet practical joke played by Americans on the rest of the world. Hey, we’re so stoopid, we’re selling you rich 1980s Japanese a lot of Manhattan at a hundred times its worth! Hey, we’re so stoopid we’re letting you Chinese finance our debt binges! Both my late husband and his father were Americans and they were brilliant at playing the “Hey, I’m just a big dumb Yank” trick, followed by an embarassing turnaround. Americans might sometimes be naïve or ignorant but they are not stupid. They can’t afford to be. American society is brutal to the stupid.
4. If it’s broke, they want to fix it. They really really want to fix it. Hence the self-criticism. In fact, they so love fixing things, they have a whole saying warning them not to fix things that ain’t broken. This is so thunderingly different from the way life works on this side of the Pond that it’s completely invisible. We should have the opposite saying: “If it is broke, don’t fix it, but pretend you have.” Heathrow is aging and a bit broke, so patch it up and pretend you’ve fixed it with shiny bits and a new terminal. That’s just as good.
Yes, I know, the global financial system is at the moment in a Heathrowesque state of patched-up-let’s-all-pretend-it’s-fine bullshit. America, the institution, is trying to sort it out and getting stymied by special interests and greed-rotted plutocrats and smug bankers. But Americans know this and they don’t like it at all.
Even with President Obama – that great shining example of how extraordinary Americans can be when they choose – it could all go wrong. But I think it doesn’t matter. In the end, perhaps irrationally, I once again feel totally confident in those amazing Americans.

Well, what do you expect? Being invited to come and talk about history and my books at a bookshop is a bit like inviting a cat to come and sit by a fire with a nice plate of sardines and a side order of catnip. Not much doubt what the answer will be. And that was after I’d been fed blackened catfish for dinner with some delightful book club members. So I happily chuntered on at Aunt Agatha’s Mystery Bookstore in Ann Arbor this evening, taking in Sir Robert Carey’s early life, my experiences while personally researching tall ship sailing for ‘Gloriana’s Torch’ (after one and a half days of puking on a square sail training ship I had a wonderful time) and some four hundred year old gossip. Luckily nobody had warned the owner Robin Agnew that if she let me into her bookstore, I’d be really difficult to get out again and would probably take at least one book with me.

What a great place. And what great fans! I love it when they let me pick their brains to research some of the embryonic books currently bugging me to write them.

Incidentally, has anyone ever thought of putting hotel rooms in bookshops? There are coffee shops in some bookstores, so why not bedrooms? It would save so much effort and you wouldn’t have to chuck me out at closing time.

Mind you, I’m loving where I’m staying tonight as well: the Vitosha Guest Haus has this quiet quirky elegance, old-fashioned style plus hi tech (I’m writing this on their computer) and the most beautiful enormous dog called George. He very politely checked my luggage: perhaps he was looking for my own much smaller dog – Holly the black Labrador. I’m sure he had no designs on my chocolates from Middletown library.

I’m at Sallie Blumenauer’s house being snortled at by her gorgeous little Boston terrier Sophy, using her laptop after some exceedingly nice carrot cake (don’t you know I’m a recovering cakeoholic?) We’ll be off tomorrow doing the East Coast bit of the tour Sallie’s been organizing. I’ll be signing books tomorrow at Barnes & Noble in Williamsburg. Do I ever get writer’s block? Yes, whenever somebody asks me to dedicate a book, my mind goes blank and I can’t think of anything to write. It’s very embarassing. I envy the brother of a friend of mine who’s a cartoonist and just does a really quick sketch so he doesn’t have to think of anything witty to say.

PATRICIA FINNEY TALK SCHEDULE FOR 20 JUNE 2010 TO 30 JUNE 2010

June 20th, Sunday afternoon

PF arrives Washington Dulles International.

June 21, Monday

2.00 pm Book signing – Barnes & Noble, New Town Shops, Williamsburg VA

June 22, Tuesday

7. 00 pm Talk – Meadowdale Branch of the Chesterfield County Public Library, Richmond VA

June 23, Wednesday

6.30 pm Talk – Southeast Anchor Library, Baltimore MD

June 24, Thursday

5.30 pm – Dinner and Signing with book club members at the Blue Tractor, Ann Arbor \MI

7.00 pm – Signing at Aunt Agatha’s Mystery Bookstore, 213 S. Fourth Ave,

June 25, Friday

6.30 – Signing – Murder by the Book, 2342 Bissonnet St, Houston, TX

June 26, Saturday

6.30 – 11.00 A Walk on the Wild Side in Mystery. Let’s Read program. Arizona Biltmore Grand Ballroom.

June 27, Sunday

2.00 – 4.00 pm Mysterious Galaxy, 7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd, Suite 302 Sand Diego, CA 92106

June 28, Monday

7.00 Signing – M is for Mystery 6 E, Third Ave San Mateo, CA 94401

June 29 – Ms Finney leaves the USA.

To blog or not to blog – that is the question.

And by opposing, end them…

Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous websites

Or to take arms against a sea of bloggers

Anyone who has ever met me/talked to me/heard me rant is probably amazed (and grateful?) that I haven’t done this before.

Here’s why I haven’t:

[Scene: Finney Mansions, aka The Dump. Sound of clattering keyboard.]

Me: OK, OK, here goes. [presses enter]

Laptop: Ptui. Error message w232w.

Me: What? [tries again]

Laptop: Blart. Error message viso09684937. Would you like to report this error?

Me: No, I just want you to work.

Laptop: Well I don’t feel like it.

Me: So what’s wrong?

Laptop: [sulky silence]

Me: Come on, darling, where’s the hurty?

Laptop: [haughty expression on screen]

Me: Come ON, damnit, what’s wrong? [patiently tries again]

Laptop: Ptui. Error message f897696u.

Me: Look, just tell me what the problem is and I’ll try and fix it? Did you not like the space in my phone number? [does the whole thing again]

Laptop: [nada] Blart. This application has stalled.

Me: *%^£$&!!! [random button pressing]

Laptop: You’re horrid and I’m not doing anything any more.

Me: Aargh, you piece of technocrap, what’s WRONG?

Laptop: [smugly] Freeze, crash. Nyah nyah nya nyah nyah.

So I’ve needed to find some brave people (in this case Channel Computing)  who can do the actual work which is worryingly described in “Blogging for TechnoChallenged Morons” as “simple and straightforward”.

Somebody who doesn’t shriek at computers and then roam restlessly round the kitchen, hunting and killing defenceless chocolate bars. All I have to do is have fun generating content.

Sorry. I don’t generate content. I simply excrete words as constantly and nonchalently as a seagull generates guano – which is, may I remind you, excellent fertiliser. So what follows is just my normal brain-guano which might occasionally fertilise a laugh. I hope.

You can also read The Daybooke of Sir Robert Carey, to get a different angle on my latest Elizabethan crime novel A MURDER OF CROWS. I can’t divulge how I happened to come across these confidential diary entries from the youngest grandson of that famous Other Boleyn Girl, but I can confirm that I’ve sorted out his spelling.