Paul Brownjohn @Paulos_the_fog@qoto.org

I'm absolutely incandescent with rage - the DWP and other ministries have paid out countless £ millions mistakenly in benefit and I haven't received a bloody penny of it!

https://www.express.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/2205894/new-dwp-benefit-fraud-overpayment-billions

Yes, I have had a similar experience with the HMRC scum!

I was pursued for around £50,000 when in fact I owed them no more than £5,000. The latter I offered to pay by instalments but they refused to accept them.

In the end I bankrupted myself and HMRC never saw one single solitary penny from me!

They really went to town on me - by the time they started pursuing me, I had moved to Belgium so they transferred my debt to the Belgian tax collector who then put the bailiffs in who broke into my home to list all the things they were to be taken to pay the debt.

However, as they've given me several weeks warning, I had made quite sure that there was nothing whatever of any significant value in the house!

When I phoned my accountant in England and told him what was happening, he said that I only owed a maximum of around £5,000 but that the inland revenue were well known for massively inflating tax bills to scare people into paying. The problem, he said, is that it will cost you around £10,000 worth of my time to prove to the inland revenue that you only owe them £5,000 not £50,000 so, the question is do you have £15,000 kicking around in your bank account to pay for that. If you don't, probably the best answer in your situation is simply to bankrupt yourself then you won't have to pay them a penny piece; Not even even the tax you really do owe them!

The bankruptcy had to be enacted at the High Court in London as I was an overseas resident but it was painless and took only a day including the visit to the Official Receiver.

The woman at the Overseas Tax Collection office in Bootle who was looking after my case, went absolutely spare saying that she refused accept my bankruptcy and would continue to pursue the debt. I did suggest she think again about that, as she would then be in contempt of court but she persisted.

I then contacted the Official Receiver who said that he wished they would teach civil servants at least the fundaments of English law. Let her stew for a bit and if she insists on continuing to try to collect the debt, get back in touch and I will take action. He continued that the original debt was extinguished by the bankruptcy and therefore no continued attempt to collect it either in the UK or overseas was legitimate. He went on to say that he was quite happy to go before a judge and request the imprisonment for contempt of court of an uppity civil servant who refuses to obey the law

Of course the complicating bit was that that they had passed the debt to the Belgians who had in turn passed it to local bailiffs for collection. The latter declined to stop collection action even when I informed them that the debt was extinguished as they said they would only accept that instruction from the people who instructed them namely the Belgian tax authorities and the latter said they would only accept it from HMRC. They finally relented when I informed them that if they continued collection action over a debt that was subject to a bankruptcy order, should they ever go to the UK they could be liable for arrest and imprisonment for contempt of court. That put a stop to the bailiffs.

In the end I threatened the civil servant in Bootle with the Official Receiver and suggested she might end up be imprisoned for contempt over Christmas and the New Year (highly unlikely but she was too stupid to realize that). I received a phone call from her on Christmas Eve to say that they had "accepted" my bankruptcy and that they would inform the Belgians and ask them to stop collection action.

Trying to collect the £50,000 I never owed them must have cost them 10s of £1000s all for nothing!

The rampant incompetence of the HMRC and other UK civil service departments is truly unbelievable.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/other/hmrc-hounded-me-over-a-tax-bill-i-didn-t-owe-yet-angela-rayner-was-exonerated/ar-AA23fEfO?ocid=winp1taskbar&cvid=067df869ab734d55bc6952783ea5fb5e&ei=6

Oh terrific!

https://cen.acs.org/environment/pesticides/Glyphosate-boosting-spread-multidrug-resistant/104/web/2026/03?sc=260328_sc_eng_bs_cen

Calopteryx virgo

The Beautiful Demoiselle

Lives only where there are biologically clean "chalk" streams.

Britain already has the most miserable, most miserly pension in the entire civilized world so any idea of curtailing it is an absolute disgrace!

WOWSER!!!

I just received this message in Facebook Messenger

"Congratulations!
‎
‎This is ELON MUSK and I'm excited to inform you that your name was randomly selected based on your recent activity on Facebook!
‎
‎As part of our 2026 Humanitarian Giveaway, you’ve been chosen to receive:
‎
‎• $50,000 in cash
‎• A brand-new Tesla car
‎
‎To claim your reward, simply type "ACCEPT" below, and I’ll personally guide you through the next steps."

My car is on its last legs so...

I swore I would NEVER drive a car made by that künt Musk - damn!

WOWSER!!!

I just received this message in Facebook Messenger

"Congratulations!
‎
‎This is ELON MUSK and I'm excited to inform you that your name was randomly selected based on your recent activity on Facebook!
‎
‎As part of our 2026 Humanitarian Giveaway, you’ve been chosen to receive:
‎
‎• $50,000 in cash
‎• A brand-new Tesla car
‎
‎To claim your reward, simply type "ACCEPT" below, and I’ll personally guide you through the next steps."

My car is on its last legs so...

I swore I would NEVER drive a car made by that künt Musk - damn!

A quote from the internet today

"Trump one of that rarest of breeds who claim to have written more books than they've read"

A quote from the internet today

"Trump one of that rarest of breeds who claim to have written more books than they've read"

Against the advice of anyone with a single functioning brain cell, it looks like that complete künt trump intends to put boots on the ground in Iran. 5000 US marines have been put on imminent hostilities alert!

3000 body bags will not be a good look nor will 2000 US Marines taken prisoner! Someone tell the papaya paedophile moron that the Iranians have been preparing for this for decades - every possible objective will be booby trapped to death. There will be beautifully inviting, organized kill zones around every objective. There won't be much air support as the Iranians have destroyed all their refueling tankers and if the US brings in more they too will be obliterated! Modern attack aircraft have a very small fuel capacity and rely on refueling tankers to get them to and from the battlefield. Without refueling, the USAF will be like a gang of one-legged men at an ass kicking party!

I would wager that there will be a number of senior military commanders planning a little side-show. The assassination of trump, vance and of his cabinet by "the Iranians". It has to look good so it'll take some planning. But given their almost unlimited resources, it should be possible!

The whole world will cheer - there will be spontaneous street parties - shares in Champagne growers will double overnight and the world can try to regain some sort of sanity!

The USA has lost almost all its credibility as a military power and all of its friends, but something good might be squeezed out this debacle.

The really ironical thing is that trump's idiocy has benefited Russia, China and most of all North Korea who may very well have supplied Iran with one or more nuclear warheads! Think about that! As israel is a rather small country, 2 or 3 nukes would probably do for most of it.

Seeing everything that is supposed to have gone on in the Epstein files, the other day I was asking myself the question “So why do the rich and powerful like to behave in ways that horrify most normal people?”
Having thought about it for a day or two, I concluded that one reason could easily be boredom. No, I know that sounds odd, but think about it, if you are a multi-billionaire and you can have anything you want any car, any apartment, any house, any estate, any anything; your own aircraft your own whatever-turns-you-on. After a bit you just get bored with it because you can have anything and the moment you have it, the thrill is gone
People who are highly successful motivated and driven seem to need constant stimulation – each stimulus more powerful than the last, but what if when you get that sort of rich and powerful, there isn’t anything left that’s legal that you can get off on. So, what do you do, you start doing things that are really edgy, sex with underage kids, making snuff movies, making torture movies and finally I suppose killing and eating kids – the ultimate taboo!
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m neither excusing nor approving of this sort of behaviour, I’m just wondering how people go from being normal people, to being the kind of monsters who rape children or kill them and eat them or whatever other horror you can think of.
This makes me wonder if we wouldn’t be doing billionaires as a favour by preventing them from accumulating those vast sums of money which must I suspect, act as a disproportionate temptation to indulge in illegal and unspeakable activity.