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SONIA KELLY “It’s so comforting to know my fiscal incompetence is shared by such a prominent person.”
Bertie’s jam jar banking
SONIA KELLY
For me the most interesting thing to emerge from the Bertiefest was the discovery that the one-time Minister for Finance uses exactly the same banking system as myself, i.e. a series of receptacles in which to keep each separate account. It was not revealed specifically what receptacles he used - in my case it was jam jars when I was running various businesses. This was not because I was particularly trying to hide anything, but was simply due to my total inefficiency with figures. If the money went into a bank, it proved impossible to segregate the different accounts and credit the appropriate amount to each one. It’s pretty obvious that Bertie is also confused by the difference between sterling and euros, as he discounted the amount of his gifts as outlined by a newspaper. It’s so comforting to know that my fiscal incompetence is shared by such a prominent person. I just wonder if he has the same problems when shopping, in that, unless you have the vision of a hawk, or carry around a microscope, it’s impossible to figure out the value of the various identical euro coins. I wonder if he has to empty his pockets on the shop counters so as the assistants can select the right ones themselves? Now I actually do have a bank account, but I certainly don’t understand it. This may, of course, be due to my unimproved mathematical aptitude and possible explains why the bank statement seldom, if ever, tallies with my own record of cheques cashed. (Naturally the bank’s is always less.) An unfortunate corollary to my own affliction seems to be the ability to transfer it to others. Any time I question a bank official, it’s no time at all before a glazed look comes over their face and they start referring me back to previous cheque books and reciting numbers, by which time I myself have become more or less ossified. It is possible that Bertie and I share this curious causality, judging by the effect that my financial arrangements had on a VAT Inspector, who came to examine my jam jars. After a long traumatic day he left in despair, declaring that I owed no tax at all - perhaps that I was even owed some! There was also an English group involved in that period in the form of a bank I was forced to use while a bank strike was in progress here. At the end of it I had unexpectedly accumulated £4,000. Was it a gift? Was it a loan? I never found out. But it came in very handy during a difficult time. These days the whole banking system is complicated immeasurably by credit cards. Need I say that I have never had one, a) because no bank would be likely to issue me with one and b) I’ve a feeling that they are based on a blueprint for destruction. In some uncanny way this feeling has proved only too correct, as news has just broken that all the information contained on the cards of the clients of Indian call centres is being sold to criminals. For £8 you can purchase enough information to actually destroy the victim of your choice. (This news is not going to make those telephone calls from people with Indian voices, who are trying to sell telephones, any more welcome). And please don’t suggest that I should use the Credit Union instead, as I’m not likely to forget the day that a builder was waiting at home for the money I owed him for a conservatory. When I went to the Credit Union to get the loan, based on what I’d saved, they wouldn’t give it to me! Why? Because I had stopped saving when I had enough for the purpose. So I guess it’s back to jam jars ...
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SONIA KELLY
