![\"kubota](\"http:\/\/www.lesguis.com\/images\/1411\/1411004.jpg\")
<\/a>And here it is – an old Kubota mini-digger.<\/p>\nThe story behind this is that I was looking for a new heavy-duty trailer as you know, ever since the bottom fell out of the Sankey trailer. I’d heard about a big heavy-duty Indespension plant trailer for sale, and so I had gone to see it. And sitting upon it was this old digger.<\/p>\n
The trailer is exactly what I want, without any doubt at all, but when the vendor mentioned the price for them both, which is what I would have paid forthe trailer had I gone to the UK and bought a new one, there wasn’t any question about it.<\/p>\n
The digger works well enough for its age and it’ll do what I want.<\/p>\n
Of course, I already have half a digger – you may remember that Terry and I bought one a few years ago between us. But that was quite modern and quite expensive and we don’t use it that much. There’s a lot of money tied up in that, and so the idea is that we sell that, split the money between us, and my share will more than cover what I paid for this.<\/p>\n
So I brought it home and had a play outside, in the driving rain, and I was soaked to bits. I’ve spent the rest of the day curled up under the quilt to dry off and keep warm. I don’t want to catch anything.<\/p>\n
But here’s a thing. I had to pay \u20ac2050 plus VAT for something today, and that meant a trip to the bank. And how long would it take you to work out what the VAT is on that? VAT is of course 20% here and so \u20ac2050 x10% is \u20ac205, and another \u20ac2050 x10% is another \u20ac205 and so the total VAT is \u20ac410. The bill thereforecomes to \u20ac2460. It took the bank clerk 15 minutes, and the help of a colleague, calculator and a computer to work it out. <\/p>\n
That’s a bank clerk in the local branch of mybank. No wonder the banks are in such a mess if this is an example of the skilled and intelligent staff that they are employing. <\/p>\n
I despair.<\/p>\n