She's leaving

Pauvre Tracey Emin! It's to weep over. We learn that Ms Emin will leave the UK if she is made to pay half her earnings over 150K in tax.

Yes, you read that right. The government, that filthy brigade of thieves, intends to have Ms Emin starve in her garret. She will barely be able to afford a couple of lines of coke on a Friday night. No wonder she looks so unhappy in the photo attached to the article, as though someone had belaboured her about the mush for some minutes with a week-old kipper.

Ms Emin is quoted as saying:

I'm simply not willing to pay tax at 50% … I reckon it would mean me paying about 65p in every pound with tax, National Insurance and so on

You often see this misunderstanding. One wonders why the interviewer does not stop her right there, and say, well, Ms Emin, surely you are aware that you would not pay 65p in every pound? You would pay much less on most of your pounds, just as the rest of us, not fortunate enough to earn in excess of 150K, do.

Ms Emin cannot paint. By which I do not mean to say, oh, she's no Vermeer. I mean, as far as I know, she is no more able to paint than I am. She is a dab hand at sewing, for sure, but few seamstresses can hope to make such a lavish living. In other words, Ms Emin has been fortunate. Maybe she is talented, I do not know. I have no critical faculty for judging the worth of works of art that consist of names of men one has entertained in the boudoir (or car, as it may be).

Ms Emin contrasts France with the UK:

At least in France their politicians have always understood the importance of culture and they have traditionally helped out artists with subsidy and some tax advantages.

To which one might respond that perhaps the UK government feels that a woman with two homes, one a very nice dacha in Provence, with attached studio, who is able to employ "staff" to help her with the arduous business of producing "art", is less in need of subsidy than the many who have no home at all.

Maybe they do not consider the re-creation of an unmade bed to be particularly cultured. Pauvre Tracey! To be so unappreciated by such Philistines! To have to muddle through with only half of every pound more than 150K she acquires and to know that the government wishes to snatch the outcome of her slaving away at, erm, putting junk on a bed or whatever.

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Welcome to monkey banana. If you're curious, a monkey banana is a banana that sits in its peel, just the way a monkey likes it. Small children also. Like monkey bananas, I mean, not sit in peel.

posted by Dr Zen @ 9:28 am