and yet more tax

Date: April 17th, 2007
Time: 20:10
Place: Good graces of the IRS

Just finished watching another episode of House, where Hugh Laurie continues to amaze playing the least Bertie Wooster-ish character imaginable, the role in which he started to amaze.

Bertie's creator, the great British author P. G. Wodehouse, was an unflinchingly genial, quiet man who had a fierce distaste for paying taxes. I am a member of the Wodehouse Society. I read an article in the newsletter about how Wodehouse, though scrupulously apolitical in his life, had donated heavily to some wingnut in the 50's who was trying to have the federal income tax declared unconstitutional.

Wodehouse lived much of his life under the accusation of being a Nazi collaborator, which was a nonsense charge, but it all stemmed from him being too cheap to pay taxes. In 1939, he was a British tax exile living Le Touquet, France. When the Germans overran Le Touquet, they imprisoned Wodehouse along with all the other foreign nationals of hostile countries.

Wodehouse was still getting paid by the Saturday Evening Post, and a German Wodehouse fan set up some broadcasts for Wodehouse from the camp. He made some very light references to the British Army which were exagerated by the British press. He didn't live it down until he was knighted in 1975.