5 SEPTEMBER 1998, Page 24

Buy and bury

NOT LONG AGO a reader in Suffolk asked me where he could buy an ingot to bury in his rice-patch. I referred him to Credit Suisse's London office but warned him that he would have to pay cash and pay VAT. Alternatively, he could sail across to Jersey, buy a tax-free ingot and bring it back as ballast, but I ought not to encour- age him to break the law. Since then, Gor- don Brown has astonished me by undertak- ing to make gold tax-free in time for the millennium. Gold is on our side, not on his. Everyone's rice-patch should have some.