Business secretary Sajid Javid has admitted that the lauded tax deal with the tax minimisation specialist Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) was “not a glorious moment” for the government.
In an article on the public's inability to make sense of big numbers, Sam Leith at the Financial Times notes that the £130mln tax settlement sort-of sounded all right, but when it was presented as equivalent to a tax rate of 3%, it very definitely sounded not all right.
Leith reckons that when it comes to big numbers, many of us are not a million (or 1,000,000) miles away from the aboriginal tribes that are said to have only three number words: “one”, “two” and “many”.
In Google's case that could be amended to “one”, “two” and “beggar-all”.
Meanwhile, The Guardian tackles the important issue of whether Google Translate can handle Scouse slang, and apparently the answer is not really, soft lad.
While investors are applauding this morning's better-than-expected fiscal third quarter update from telecoms colossus BT (LON:BT.A), which recently decided to move back into the mobile phone networks game, industry regulator Ofcom has thrown a stick in the spokes of network operator Three and its plans to acquire O2.
We're almost back to Aboriginal arithmetic here, aren't we?
Ofcom boss Sharon White was quoted as saying the reduction in mobile operators from four to three would not just unbalance competition in the mobile market, but also affect high street retailers.
On to the small caps and Baron Oil (LON:BOIL), which sounds like the name of a pantomime villain were that pantomime to be held in, say, Blackpool.
The shares are up more than 5% this morning after the company said the onshore seismic acquisition programme in Block XXI, Peru has been successfully completed by GSS and all the equipment is off hire. The total cost of the seismic programme was US$1.9 million.
Block XXI … is that 21 in Roman numerals, or a Scouse word that Google is unable to translate?