A black toy car sits in a row of empty pastel-colored parking spaces viewed from above on gray ground.

Original artwork, not a still

Eddie

Why, oh why do we pay taxes, huh? Just so we can have bloody parking restrictions, and bloody ugly traffic wardens, and bollocky pedestrian bloody crossings! Why not just have a “Stupidity Tax?” Just tax the stupid people!

— Absolutely Fabulous • 1992

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

The speaker angrily asks what taxes even pay for, listing petty irritations: parking limits, ugly wardens and awful crossings. Then comes a sarcastic proposal, a special levy on stupid people. The rant swings from complaint about officialdom to a joke that turns insults into public policy.

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