Something more serious in the world of tax: the finance bill has appeared.

And here are the relevant details for you: It has 158 clauses, 46 schedules and is spread across 428 pages. Happy reading!

That compares with last year's finance bill, which was 313 pages, with 113 clauses. So much for simplification, you might say.

It's not as bad as 2006's Finance Act, which came in at 517 pages. But it's worse than the Bill in 2005, which was 166 pages long.

How long before the Treasury tell us you can't measure tax complexity by counting the pages of the Finance Bill, I wonder?