Any arachnophiles reading this? There's been a spider on my ceiling for a few days now. I checked on Tuesday to see if it was still alive and it was ... gave it a bit of a nudge and it twitched: then it settled back down again and it's still there! So, that spider's been in the same place for at least four or five days: no web, no movement as far as I know and no food. What is this spider waiting for? When will it realise that dinner just isn't going to come calling? Is it just waiting to die? Answers on a postcard please! DW

Mrs W NEEDED to go to the Sales today to buy a couple of odds and ends. I did not like the cushions for our living room she had her eye on: I love things medieval ... but not as a focal point of my living room that has nothing else medieval in it. So we didn't buy them then. Then I decided I NEEDED a sandwich and a drink whilst Mrs W was buying goodness knows what. Marks and Spencer Oxford has installed a serve yourself till that we thought we'd have a crack at. The couple before us had a bad experience with the machine; but thinking that it must have been their fault we sallied forth and had a go. We needed to call the assitant over almost immediately ... and again within a minute as it told us that we needed to get help ... then it gave us another dose of zero encouragement so we ditched that idea and moved over to a proper till! Looks like M&S has some work to do on that system. Speaking of having work to do, one of M&S's other machines was out of order and they had a notice apologising for "... any inconveniances". M&S recruits pretty good people on average so this DOUBLE mistake was a bit of a surprise. If anyone from M&S ever reads this, they should take note and send me a voucher for my services! DW

Let's talk about bowels! Having been a veggie for around 12 years or so and only eating meat for one day a year, I need to remind myself about the perils thereof! Taking sausages, bacon, turkey, more sausages and sausage rolls on board all of a sudden wreaks havoc with the old alimentary canal. I enjoyed the Christmas dinner and the company that went with it and I enjoyed my traditional Christmas morning breakfast (monster fry up) that I've been doing since around 1975 but there's a payback. Today was much better and whatever needed to come to pass seems to have come to pass. Sayeth the Lord!! DW

A nice Xmas Day came and went. Up and about early and made an excellent breakfast, with my vegetarianism suspended for the day ... as usual, I stop being a veggie for Xmas Day. So, a fry up to start the day: smoked bacon, sausages, potato cakes, baked beans and a fried egg. Mmmm! Then unwrapping the gifts ... lots of books, a DVD, diary, pullover ... then stuffing and cooking the Turkey. Mrs W got involved and we prepared a delicious repast for our guests and ourselve. Tucked in at around 1430 and although we didn't bloat ourselves, the pudding and custard added a layer of blubber that was most welcome. Drank a little bit: Bollinger Champagne to go with dinner and a couple of beers with tea ... Xmas cake baked by yours truly in October, trifle, sausage rolls and other odds and ends and a cheese board with cheeses from Yorkshire, France, Italy, Norway and Leicestershire! Talked to my two sons and finished the day with a tipple of Armagnac ... why did I bother with that? Woke up at 0230 with hiccups and then felt a bit groggy as I woke up at 0825 ... that's very late for me. Boxing Day now and even though the Sales have started my motto is NO SHOPPING! Mrs W has plans!!! DW

Doreen wrote from Malta to ask about environmental management accounting: here are the links I found for her: Hello there Doreen, I put the phrase Management Environmental Accounting into Google and these are the kinds of things that it came back with. I hope these set you on your way. If you repeat this search you will find a lot of good corporate links to environmental reporting. From the Ricoh Group Environmental Accounting: this site if for the year 2001 and they have data for 2000, 1999 and 1998 at least, too. There is a lot of information on this page and could be a really good starting point for you. How about the Environmental Management Accounting (EMA) International Website? A lot of links here to articles and other sites. There’s a link down the bottom of the left hand side of the page to the ACCA Student’s Newsletter that has articles about environmental accounting: this is well worth a look … again, another really good starting point! There’s also links to the United Nations EMA working group, environmental management accounting research and information center (EMARIC), Take a look at this from Japan: ... some useful ideas on indicators for accountants and environmentalists. You have probably heard of the company Sharp, here’s their contribution to your assignment. This is another corporate site and it gives you a lot of data from their environmental accounting records. Go to the Environmental Management Systems Institute at the University of Florida. They provide a few useful looking links including “The Environmental Management Systems Alliance (EMS Alliance) is a business and industry/government/academic partnership that encourages networking and peer consultation with the goal of helping organizations develop or improve an environmental management system.”; and a number of other issues and organisations. They also provide a link to ISO14000. In case the ISO 1400x series is useful for you, go to ISO14000.org and see what you can find: including this link that tells you a lot about ISO 14001 … There you are Doreen. I think this will jump start your work very well. Let me know if there’s anything else I can help you with and how you get on with your assignment. Best wishes DW