Tax return fun while ,,jdu do hájzlu"

Dear Reader,

If you've ever known the excitement of sitting down to a nice big form in English where you have to read accompanying notes and fill in the details of your income or loss over the last year, then you are lucky enough to be living in a very different world to me. Yes, I admit it, the system for filing a tax return in the UK was easy. I made a huge song and dance about it, of course because I hate accounting, but in the UK there was help. Free help. (At least, that was when Labour were still in power. I imagine one or two things may have changed on this front by now). For starters, at the time I first registered as self-employed, it was possible to sign up for a free morning course at the lovely inland revenue building somewhere along Kensington High Street and get all the info you needed just incase the notes accompanying the form hadn't helped.

Now try doing all of that stuff, with no free course, no notes and it all being in Czech. And there being three forms because for some reason the social security department and health insurance department are not capable of checking the amounts that you've paid were accurate and want proof, independently of having to deal with the tax office themselves (that would be far too integrated and efficient), that you don't qualify for a higher rate. And you cannot post these forms. Oh no. They need you to go in person, for maximum wastage of everyone's time, presumably. Can you say, 'job creation', anyone?

So, of course, I hadn't a hope in hell of working this out on my own, and two weeks before the deadline, the cowboy having reassured me previously that he'd help me fill in the form because I really hadn't earnt very much so it 'couldn't take long', declared that it all looked a bit too complicated actually, so I had to get an accountant to do it. Who of course gets paid for what amounts to about 2 hours' work in total (at most) including the meeting up with me to hand over the info I needed to provide and return everything to me at the end, the same amount as I get paid for 5, 90 minute meetings. So that's 7 and a half hours' work of mine spent entirely on getting a tax return done. But it doesn't end there.

Oh no, of course, the accountant can only return me the forms which I then physically have to take to each office (finance office, health insurance office and social security office), taking away yet more of my time. And the first stop is the financial office in Háje. Let me tell you a little bit about Háje. It's not only the end stop on the C line (also known as the red line to people who don't actually live here) and looks like the kind of place where hope goes to die a miserable death (see photos, yes people, this is the other face of Prague...) but it happens to bear a linguistic resemblance to an unpleasant phrase stolen somewhat from German. The expression is, ,,jdu do hájzlu", meaning 'I'm going down the toilet'(In other words, 'I'm screwed/there's no hope for me'), but the word for toilet is more like, 'bog' or something ruder. And people tend to say it when they've got to go somewhere that feels like the pit of hell. Hence, whenever I think of Háje, I cannot separate it in my head from this delightful expression.

And taking a look at these pictures, perhaps you can appreciate why. To be fair, Chodov isn't much better. And Chodov lacks the Dr. Who-reminiscent tardis decorations at the metro station that Háje has. 

So, I guess it's much of a muchness.

I'm glad I decided to brace the tedium of the tax office by wearing my ironic beret that says, "La vie est belle." 

I somehow felt that it was the perfect kind of attitude to walk around with when surrounded by dull buildings, run-down shops and tax return people who don't seem to know any more than I do what was actually required to do with my form. (Turns out all I needed really was to get both copies stamped and to leave one of them with them there, but you'd think this was a totally unheard of practice the way the woman at the counter reacted.) Thankfully, there was no queue and I was in an out of there in five minutes. Now, you can be sure, if this sort of thing were required in London, there's no way it would have taken any less than an hour. So, I suppose I should be grateful for small mercies.

And I hope I'll be getting some nice chocolate soon, to make up for it. The cowboy will be getting this:

I am trying not to despair that I will probably not get anything more than a Lindt bunny and a cursory, ,,Veselé Velikonoce", but I guess I can live with that. For the time being. 

I hope you are eating lots of very good quality chocolate as you read this. Not that nasty, cheap Cadbury's stuff. Even the cowboy thinks that kind of chocolate is something the UK should be ashamed of. I have to say I agree. One must get oneself to 'Hotel Chocolat' or something of that ilk for the sake of retaining a reasonable level of mental health, quite frankly. I mean, if you can't get good quality chocolate, you may as well throw in the towel and move to Belgium. Or something.

I bid you a fond and very Happy Easter dear Reader. Thank you for indulging yourself in these frivolous tales from the edge of the platform in my mind.

Yours unapologetically,

Ms. Platform Edge. XXX

Fittings and failings

Dear kind and patient reader,

How are you doing? Is Spring actually "springing" where you are? Here it's still bitingly cold, so much so that as I left the flat this morning I was worried that my hair must have thinned so much in the last few days, because without a hat on, my head and ears were in pain as the piercingly cold wind hit. But I don't think it's the lack of thick long locks that is responsible. It is simply COLD here. Still.

It's been a busy time, and I'm juggling so many things that I don't know where to start in trying to fit in having time to myself. The only non-negotiable time I can stick to is my aerobics and pilates slot three times a week, but that's not so much relaxing as an onslaught on my fears about ageing and my attempts to encourage my body to stay with me, work with me and give me half a chance of still having a career in music and being visible as a woman, despite not being a spring chicken.

Anyway, enough of my complaining. I went to a most interesting 'fitting' for the now already being reported on, film '1864'. They're starting shooting on it in a couple of weeks in Denmark, but shooting doesn't start here until June. In the meantime, they wanted to check out a few possible hairstyles and, indeed, hair pieces for my role. Which involved lots of comparing my hair with the fake hair for the colour comparison and my having to try to retain some dignity in my mind while being faced with the slightly disconcerting reality of the sheer number of grey hairs I now have. Centre partings reveal it all from face shape, to spots, to grey hairs, it's the most unbecoming look ever. 

The make-up director - the only Danish person there, who ironically was called Björk - seemed quite happy with the results though. One 'look' involved having my hair down in a long plait - which was just a plait of fake hair added on the end of my own, plaited in. And the other two were variations of an 'up' do from the 1860s. Both of these involved considerable back-combing, hairspray and about a hundred clips so that when they were finished, I felt like I was carrying a bag of rice on my head. 

There was some lovely repartee as we went along though, which was kind of fun. Some of which was in Czech, some in English. One of the guys there, whose job remained unknown to me, reminisced about working with the lovely Libuše Šafránková, who, from what I can tell has been in almost every Czech film ever made over the last 3 decades. She was apparently always so nice to everyone, all the crew loved her. 

Then I mentioned how funny it had been to notice while watching the Czech film world awards, called, ,,Lev" [lion] that the presenter obviously knew one of the actors, Ondřej Vetchý, as a friend, because they 'tykat'-ed each other (i.e. used the 'tu', not 'Vous' form equivalent) while talking about presenting an award. I felt like this would never happen in England even if we did have a 'tu' and 'Vous' form to differentiate between. I think people often switch to more formal language for formal events such as awards ceremonies, regardless of who they are talking to. But maybe I'm wrong. Would the French disguise a personal relationship by switching back to using 'Vous' with a friend for the purposes of presenting an awards ceremony? I feel sure that they would, having seen how a friend who worked as an au pair was suddenly referred to as 'tu' during a party the family had one night, but was back to being addressed as 'Vous' the next morning when she was looking after the children. Hmm. Is this somehow insincere? Is it wrong? It's certainly easier to disguise in English, as there is no grammatical distinction to be made in the same way as exists in French, Czech or almost any other European language infact.

I also had to laugh, when I was marched back and forth to the plain white wall where a photographer took pictures of each actor's finished 'look' to log it for reference, and I felt like I was being taken to line up for a firing squad. And in the midst of all that, I was referred to as ,Slečna Herečka', which translates as 'Miss Actress' and sounds ridiculous in English, but is what Czechs do all the time when they don't know someone's name but they know their job. So, ,Paní učitelka'  ('Mrs Teacher') is very common, for example. That's what all the kids in schools call their teachers. It sounds so baby-ish in English somehow, and even more ridiculous when used for an actress, which I barely even see myself as, because acting work happens so rarely, that I'm only an actress for a few hours or days while a film is being shot, but thereafter I revert to just plain old me. (Getting-old, me, actually.)

But for the Czechs, this seemed a logical and easy way to deal with all of these actors and not having to remember my difficult and unusual name. I also got measured for the costumes they'll be making for me, which was funny too, because you're suddenly this thing to be poked and prodded and remarked upon. My tiny stature being something noteworthy to some extent, as it's not very typical, especially not for an actress. They took all sorts of strange measurements and said that I'd probably have to come back for a proper fitting at some stage, to make the skirt really fit tightly around my waist. However, they said this in Czech and I'm not sure if I totally understood all of it.

As for the 'failings' part of this letter, I made an effort to cook something healthy, though rather expensive here, unfortunately, and got some salmon and broccoli and brown rice and put together a good, healthy meal, the like of which is not easy to make often, due to the lack of choice of affordable meals one can make from things available in supermarkets here, especially in the depths of godforsaken Chodov. I liked it. I put basil and lemon with the salmon and I liked the fact that it was simple, healthy and well-cooked to a soft, delicate texture. There was some left over for the cowboy when he got back, and he, rather hungry, ate it quickly. But then he came and found me washing up in the kitchen afterwards and said, in his inimitable way, "Um, sorry, but did you even add salt to it? Did you add salt to the broccoli?" To which I replied yes, because I had, but I hadn't added more than a few turns of the salt and pepper grinders, along the length of the salmon and around the saucepan of the broccoli, and clearly, this was far too healthy an approach. It is not Czech. "It was tasteless", the cowboy complained, having eaten it all. 

From which I conclude two important things: 1) The cowboy is only satisfied with a meal if it contains enough salt to kill a small child (and that may not even be enough because you can kill babies quite easily with tiny amounts of salt, so I imagine a small child doesn't need a whole lot more) and 2) the cowboy is the kind of man who expects things he does not bother to communicate and when they aren't there and he could feasibly do something about it (like get off his bottom and go to the kitchen to get some more salt) opts to play the victim and complain when it's too late to change as though he's been really hard done by, instead of actually taking action himself. I hate to say it, but it strikes me that these two things are inherently Czech attributes. Neither of which I have any time for.

It's time to leave. And discover the unfortunate attributes of another culture that I first  felt drawn to. I am not meant to stay in one place too long, methinks. As the TV theme to 'the littlest hobo' goes, "maybe tomorrow, I'll wanna settle down. Until tomorrow, I'll just keep movin' on..." I hope. Please, soon, allow me an exit strategy of some sort, I implore you, world.

I bid you goodnight for now, kind reader and wish you calming, if not actually sweet, dreams,

Ms. Platform Edge.X