介绍:
20160527ou 一中两外锵锵三人行
今日话题： 络腮胡也收税？！
Lincoln: Now, a barber has proposed a very interesting tax. Michael, maybe you can kick us off.
Michael: Maybe not so much in China, but in the UK, in the US, in a lot of western countries, beards have become tremendously fashionable. People go around with their buttoned-up shirts and their fixed-gear bikes and their beards, and it’s become a hipster staple over the last few years, and one barber in the UK has called on the government to implement a beard tax. He proposes that the tax would be £100 a year, so that’s about 1,000 kuai a year under his proposed law, while those with more modest stubble would only have to cough up £50, so about 500 kuai. I don’t even know where to begin with this. How would you possibly enforce a beard tax? Is there a debt collector who comes and knocks on your door?
Yoyo: Usually, if people tax something, they will put the money into infrastructure or for good causes, so if they tax beards, how do they want to use the money?
Michael: His idea was that he would put this plan to George Osborne, who’s the UK Chancellor, and propose that the extra money could be used to help plug the hole in the national budget.
Lincoln: Apparently, something like this, it’s been reported, has actually existed before. There is evidence that in 1910, the state of New Jersey in the United States introduced a levy on facial hair.
Michael: And interestingly, people with ginger beards were taxed an extra 20% on top of the flat rate. Now, I wonder if this has anything to do with racial discrimination. A lot of Irish immigrants came over to New Jersey and that part of the US, and a lot of Irish people tend to have quite ginger hair, so I wonder if there’s a correlation between the two, there.
Lincoln: Quite possible, and we don’t even know why they introduced the beard tax in the first place, so we don’t know why they did that for every other man, as well. Now, I know you shave a fair bit, Michael. Is it a hassle? Is it something that you quite enjoy having?
Michael: I mean, I have to get up quite early for work. It’s really more of a hindrance than anything else. I shave my head at the same time, with the same razor. It just saves a lot of time. If I had a job where I had to look in any way presentable, I’d probably shave every day, or at least every other day.
Lincoln: What I would want is a nice little thin one, like Hercule Poirot, like a French private investigator.
Michael: Something that you can twirl.
Lincoln: Yeah, I would love to be able to twirl it.
Yoyo: Oh, that is just like Captain Jack [Sparrow], Johnny Depp.
Lincoln: Yeah, I think that’s perhaps a bit too much. I think thin, on the lip, just uncomfortable for everyone around me, because they feel like they have to talk about it, and I’m just quite oblivious to the whole thing.
Michael: The great thing about having a beard, or having facial hair, is that there’s always something to play with, you know, absent-mindedly, especially if you have a moustache, you can just twirl the ends, or just lick the ends with your tongue. A good thing is, if you’re having soup, or something that’s quite thick, you actually get a second bite of the cherry, so to speak, because once you’ve had the initial spoonful, there’s usually a little bit that gets stuck in your top lip, and then you can just lick that down, or maybe a few hours later, maybe something’ll get stuck in [WY: Save it for later] Just have a little snack.
