Can't handel it any more

Exceptional item

A clear winner in the Accountants-in-films competition.

For the avoidance of doubt...

...all of the bad press that estate agents suffer is wholly unmerited in my opinion. By way of context, the excel chimp enclosure in Tooting is rapidly becoming too small for our needs, resulting in the tentative decision to leverage up to dangerous levels in order to get a larger house. As a result, my wife spent yesterday afternoon in the company of various estate agents, who despite their dubious reputation, definitely DID NOT do any of the following:

• suggest in no uncertain terms that our budget was nowhere near big enough, and hint that we'd need to spend at least £50k more than our budget
• quietly suggesting that frankly we didn't have enough money, and weren't the sort of people that they wanted to associate with
  
• imply that we would not be taken remotely seriously until we'd seen their 'independent financial adviser'
• on being challenged about the above, insisting that the financial adviser really was independent
• on being presented with irrefutable proof that they were fibbing, reluctantly admitting that said financial adviser wasn't perhaps independent in the normal sense of the word
• hint that unless we use them both to buy and to sell, we wouldn't have a hope
• offer to get the valuation done immediately, sign us up to the contract within an hour, and have the house on the market before tea time
  

God bless them, every one.


Following an earlier post, the above is an exciting montage of further accountants in films, and what a fine bunch of excel chimps they are. Downtrodden, grey, bespectacled to a man. On the left is the nerdy guy who brings down the Capone mob due to non-compliance with tax regulations in 'The Untouchables'. Centre is the fellow from 'The Producers'. Right is Mr Stern from 'Schindler's List'. Any more out there?

Gone

You could post a letter through that mouth

The above quote about Cherie Blair, by HRH The Duke of Edinburgh.
Click on the thingummy to make it big and legible

Unlucky people are generally more tense

Well, it's Friday again. And in a spirit of merriment and joy, why not take a look at the 'Loser's Guide to Being Lucky'

Respect zones

In a frankly unsurprising development, the government has created 40 'Respect Zones', being those places where no-one respects anyone. Using the same rationale, HM Treasury is to be renamed as a 'Charismatic Efficiency Zone'. Ho ho.

Is it me or is the new US anti-terror weapon made from a old kitchen floor attached sideways to a hummer? People would pay good money to feel 'like they're about to catch fire' without being in danger. Pity to waste such a good idea on Iraqi militias.

"My God man! I'm not a strawberry!"

Thanks to the late Edward VII for the title of today's blog (brought to you in association with Shh...by Jade Goody. Excellent advice, Jade), who spluttered the above to a footman who spilt cream on him.

Just about the only thing I can remember...

... from my all-day risk management seminar today is the phrase:
"We need to pick the right horse and make sure it's fully staffed".
Discuss.

Monday gloom

Girly swot analysis

I always had my suspicions about our great president, but look at this - a file prepared in minute detail for a Q&A session, with dozens of little post-it notes (in two colours - yellow for the top of the file; white for the side) glued in so that he doesn't lose his place. Parliamentary life is far too dangerous to risk spontaneous wit.

This gives the lie to TB's carefully propogated 'back story' of being a rock'n'roller at Oxford back in the '70s - he was in fact in the library with six different coloured highlighters, marking up his meticulously-taken lecture notes whilst frowning at people talking.

So...

...whilst nuclear war with India draws ever closer thanks to Jade Goodey, UK inflation spins out of control, Iraq descends further into chaos, the Taleban stages yet another comeback in Afghanistan, and the poor ickle polar bears have to swim for it as the polar ice caps melt ...

Maggots

MBA Business Strategy and Ethics 101
Case study

Read the following case, and answer the questions which follow (50 minutes)

Mr X
Mr X walks into a department store, chooses a camcorder, pays for it and leaves the store 15 minutes after arriving, a happy man, fully equipped to stalk his ankle-biters with said camcorder for the remainder of their short childhood.


Mr B
Mr B walks into department store, hangs silently around the customer service desk in that very English way (you know the one - desperately trying to convey annoyance at poor service, without actually saying or doing anything), being roundly ignored by the sales staff, who are stapling bits of paper to other bits of paper. Ten minutes later, when it becomes clear that Mr B is not going to go away anytime soon, a member of staff finally acknowledges his presence and provides assistance in choosing a camcorder. Mr B selects a camcorder, and in a controversial move, suggests buying it then and there. The staff are flabbergasted - does this fool really think we actually stock these things?

Mr B reluctantly gives the sales guy a lot of personal information, which is typed very slowly into an ancient computer, whose printer eventually spits out a piece of paper, which is stapled to another piece of paper, and handed back to Mr B, with the promise that the camcorder will be in stock within two weeks.

Three weeks pass.

Mr B receives a voicemail that the camcorder is ready for collection. Mr B returns to the department store, and finds himself once again facing a pair of under-employed sales assistants - one is adjusting his tie and staring at a hole in the ceiling, the other is ... stapling a piece of paper to another piece of paper. Mr B attracts the sullen attention of one of these coves and relays his intelligence regarding the camcorder, only to be told by the sales guy, with a mixture of relief and joy, that he can't possibly help, and that Mr B is required to join a very long queue for something obliquely referred to as 'Customer Assistance'.

Ten minutes pass, during which time the two members of staff serving customers (there are four more lurking in the background, apparently checking the work of the other two) manage to serve one customer each, which of course involves stapling a lot of pieces of paper to other pieces of paper.

A further five minutes pass, at which time Mr B is finally at the front of the queue. Two minutes after that he is served, and pays the princely sum of £399 for the camcorder (do you remember the camcorder? He'd ordered it the previous year.) It then transpired that 'Customer Assistance' did not actually have the camcorder - an entirely seperate team of paper-staplers called 'Customer Collections' was the only one actually permitted to get their hands on the things that customers actually visit the store in order to buy.

A short elevator ride later, Mr B emerges in the 'Customer Collections' area, a strange mixture of an old-fashioned Post Office and rather bad tempered branch of Argos. Due to a minor miracle, there is no queue. Mr B is served by an angry looking man called Nigel who disappears behind a screen for a spell before eventually returning with...the camcorder. Nigel staples some pieces of paper to some other pieces of paper.

Mr B brings the camcorder home, some 3 weeks later than planned. Mr B opens the box. Mr B frowns slightly, since the camcorder doesn't look like the one he chose all those weeks ago. Mr B checks on the department store's website, and discovers that he's in fact been given a top of the range product by the hapless Nigel, worth some £300 more than he paid for it.

Questions

1. Discuss the merits of the business model used by the department store under the two scenarios. Provide evidence to back up your conclusions (15 marks)

2. How on earth is the department store under scenario B still in business? (25 marks)

3. Given the crass incompetence, stupidity and rudeness of everyone associated with the department store, should Mr B return the camcorder to the store? (Note that the camcorder that he originally ordered is still out of stock, according to the store's website) (10 marks)

Previously on 24...

Statistics

Strange

Taxing accounting

So I've just submitted my 2005/06 tax return, and am delighted to have contributed more than £20,000 to Uncle Gordon's coffers during the period. At the current rate of £1.5bn a year, that's bought me 7 minutes of 'peacekeeping' in Iraq.
The above snap is meant to be the first of a series of 'famous accountants in films'. Trouble is, there aren't many more of them. Oh well.
Monday starts in less than 90 minutes. I've already received an SMS from El Presidente telling me to get into work early tomorrow. Have a good week, bean counters.

Trains

Made it to the end of the first week back at school. Might even get some exercise this year.
A big thank you to JK and the crew who called earlier and sang a song on speakerphone from the back of a taxi. It brought a tear to my eye.

Man dates tory

Two days of mandatory online learnings down, one to go. Eight solid hours of money laundering can really take it out of you.

Independence Day

Pictured above is the SEC, sucking the lifeblood out of the great capitalist system. That's right, I've spent the day plodding through Mandatory Independence Training. So here's a quick quiz for you all (or 'you both') (or just 'you') (let's face it, it's just 'me'):

Question 1

Due to the illness of a colleague, you are assigned at short notice to analyse intra-month cash movements on a due diligence on a listed company in which your wife’s brother’s civil partner’s sister’s mother holds three shares. Does this impinge upon your independence?

1. Nah
2. Um…
3. Not remotely, but that’s not the point. You must sell your house immediately, inform a guy in the US firm who has no idea what or where the UK is, then move at least 500 miles from your wife’s brother’s civil partner, who’ll have to resign from his job. Then face imprisonment anyway.

Question 2

The FD of a unlisted audit client offers your brother-in-law’s non-dependent child’s half brother a large cash bung to look the other way whilst he tucks a few spare quid into an offshore SPV at the year end. Is this a reportable offence?

1. Yes, but only if you report it
   
2. No, provided you don’t get caught
3. No, because you’re not a covered person, and your brother-in-law’s non-dependent whatever is not a member of your immediate family. Nice.

Question 3

Will the advent of a million tedious checklists prevent the next Enron-style corporate meltdown?

1. No
2. Of course not