Time to report on the last 24 hours or so. Frantic phone call from the UK from Mrs W ... they won't let me have any cash but I can buy food! Turns out, to cut a long story short, that yours truly, for the first time in 30 years (honest, it's twue, it's twue ... that's a quote from the tart in Blazing Saddles, Lilly von Shtupp) I'd written out a cheque so badly that they couldn't process it. Hence, they're cashless. Got on the blower to my bank and they were awfully decent and set up an additional credit line to cover the temporary embarrassment. I then faxed them to say transfer the cash to the Mrs! Let me assume that they did it!! I'll check shortly. Later on, Dima went skating and tried to use HIS cash card only to find that he entered the wrong PIN number THREE times so that was the end of that then: Different account, same bank. Don't know the end of that story but Mrs W told him to ask him mates to lend him a quid each ... and STOP BEING SO ENGLISH!! Feeling that the day had ended I was just about to settle down to watch a film (DVD on the laptop since all but CNN has disappeared from the hotel television "service") I realised that the power cable was still in the office. Got redressed and trailed back across town to retrieve it ... good exercise that I wouldn't otherwise have had; and it's the first time I've left such a cable behind! What's happening to the world? I'm listening to that glorious aria from the Marriage of Figaro that I heard on the Shawshank Redemption the other night: lovely if you like soprano duets, awful if you don't I suppose!! Just as I plugged in the external speakers to listen, though, the whole system shut down and rebooted. Why? I have spent the morning trying to connect a projector to my laptop in readiness for a seminar next week. Failed miserably: they are not communicating with each other. PLUS, no manual, no software no one else around. I'll keep you posted as if you're fascinated!! Going to review some films and books now and write a piece on cost plus pricing and absorption costing. DW

My sister Blog, rubbishEnglish, has just announced the winner of the very first rubbishEnglish that cares award. The winner of this coveted award is Michael Skapinker of the Financial Times and we send our heartiest congratulations to him! Well done Michael! Shame on all the rest, of course, as everyone could be a winner! DW

I was pointed at a summary of Activity Based Costing yesterday and having read it I had a few questions for the author, David Katz. I wrote to David with these questions and he kindly replied. Full details as follows: The article Activity Based Costing (ABC) at CFO.com (Linked with the permission of CFO.com) My questions Thanks for the interesting article on ABC, David. However, I have to take issue with you on your suggestion that Bob Kaplan "invented" ABC. There is no doubt, as you are probably aware, that Kaplan was at the forefront of the development of ABC from an accounting standpoint, although Kaplan is not an accountant himself, of course! In reality ABC was developed by non accountants in a non accounting environment; and production and other non financial managers at Hewlett Packard are given significant credit for their work on wresting cost accounting development from their accounting colleagues. Secondly, I would say that any problems that ABC has faced is due in large measure to the fact that accountants don't like it. The history of cost accounting, and this time Kaplan, with Johnson (Relevance Lost), is at the vanguard of developments, shows us that the average cost accountant is lazy, uncreative and lacks initiative. Kaplan and Johnson found that most cost accounting ideas and techniques in use today have been in place since around 1925 ... no wonder that non accountants developed ABC, then, is it? A cost accounting system that is seen as difficult to design and maintain is not attractive even though its outputs are significantly better than the alternative, traditional system. David's response Thanks for your thoughtful comments. I don't think the piece suggests that Kaplan "invented" ABC; in fact, it doesn't use that word. Also, we did say that a main barrier to ABC implementation was the resistance of accountants. Your point about the development of the idea by production types outside the accounting arena was illuminating, however. Thanks again. David M. Katz Assistant Managing Editor CFO.com davidkatz@cfo.com At least there are people who reply to genuine questions, unlike the people over at my rubbishEnglish Blog who think that by ignoring questions, all is well with their world! DW

I won't provide too many details but a visitor wrote to me to the effect that he is about to set a ratio analysis exam for his students but wanted guidance on where to find data for a question. Here is what I told him, bearing in mind that he is not from Europe or the Americas. Hello there! Ratio analysis is an interesting topic to teach but it can be difficult for students to appreciate! Consequently, your exam question needs to be well thought out and prepared. One of the best sources of information for ratio analysis questions is at the FT Annual Reports web site. At this site you can download British or American annual reports and accounts in Adobe Acrobat format and can then print them out and use in your exam. If your computer will let you do it, you might even be able to copy and paste some of the data into, say, Excel or Word; and that might help you too. Be aware though, that British and American reports MIGHT not be exactly what you are looking for as your financial reporting laws are probably different to theirs. You might need to edit the data you find, therefore. In any case, I have used these reports a lot and I am sure you will benefit enormously from doing the same. I hope this is of use to you but let me know if I can provide further help in any way. Best wishes As regular visitors know, I do generate my own profit and loss accounts and balance sheets for analysis purposes and using Excel and random numbers and can easily share these ideas with anyone who's interested. DW

Burberry scarves were the most notable fashion accessory that I spotted as I moved from the UK to Bosnia: can't think why as I find the Burberry colours hideous. Still, who am I to make fashion statements? I wish I'd had a camera with me on the flight from Vienna to Munich: the landscape was beautifully snow covered. Even at a height of 29,000 feet, almost any camera would have turned in glorious results. It made me think of setting a question for young people along the lines of: Calculate the width of the forest at X given the following: Jack is in an aeroplane at 29,000 feet and estimates that the angle at the apex of the triangle formed by taken lines of sight from the aeroplane to the left and to the right of the forest and the width of the forest is 10 degrees ... ... but who would think of such a thing? DW

Thought you'd like to know how well I travelled from the UK to Bosnia ... it took me 30 hours and a horse and trap could have got me here quicker! I left home half an hour earlier than I did for my previous flight out here and arrived at Heathrow an hour earlier than I did on that trip. The M4/M40/M25 tangle of motorways near Heathrow is a nightmare most times and it is scary how many cars are using it: note, though, that I surveyed those cars this time and the vast majority of them have only the driver in them ... the core of any transport policy in the UK has either to accept or reject the freedom of people to travel alone in their cars. Anyway, checked in within one minute and then immediately found that the flight had been delayed by half an hour (at Heathrow they said it was because of the bad weather there but the Captain said the delay was due to bad weather at Vienna!). We took off an hour and ten minutes late and, unlike last time, arrived at Vienna too late to make the connecting flight. Ended up in a huge queue of flight missers from all over the world and was given the choice of waiting for the Sarajevo flight the following day or taking an earlier flight to Munich and then Sarajevo the following day: I chose the latter as a forward moving person who hates hanging around. I was put up at the Penta Hotel in central Vienna and was reasonably content with the room but the meal voucher entitled me to a meat rich meal with no veggie alternative. I told them that people like me exist who aren't desperate to eat dead cow and pig muscle! I decided that I would take the opportunity for a walk around Vienna and would snap away for all to wonder at. Well, I would have had I not left the hotel and taken a right turn instead of the far more appropriate left turn! There was a strong and bitterly cold wind blowing and after half an hour of seeing almost nothing I turned back. Here endeth anything in the slightest bit interesting about Vienna. I took some photos in spite of everything just to say I was there! DW

Another glowing testimonial came in today from another satisfied customer! Your page on how to make Box Whisker diagrams using MS Excel was a godsend. Thanks for going to the trouble of making it, you made everything simple and easy to understand and were better than any program that I had previously downloaded to do it. Thanks again… David HTH, David, as they say! DW

I wrote to and got a reply from the Institute of Directors about that call and they confirmed that it was almost certainly bogus! DW

More glorious weather today: sunny and very crisp. Three roads into Oxford were closed to traffic today: so everyone was driving along them, yours truly included. I drove along the Botley Road into Oxford and felt that closing the dratted thing was overkill. There is some surface water still there and streets away from the road are more seriously flooded; but my cursory glance said it's overkill. Lots of people using the road too! Modern Britain! Had a phone call from someone purporting to be from the Institute of Directors today asking for the Managing Director ... I said it was me! He then asked about my address and hung up before I could ask for his business! DW

Took son Dima out to Buscot in Oxfordshire for a map reading session today. Really lovely, sunny and crisp weather: lots of surface water though as the floods still haven't subsided that much. As an example of the flooding we found, at the river lock we visited at Buscot Weir, the level of the river at the bottom of the lock was the same as the level at the top of the lock: no need for a lock today, then! Just by the Weir there are two benchmarks that show the maximum heights that the river has been known to have reached, late in the 19th century and late in the 20th century ... the height of the river today was well below these two heights. So they've had it much worse than we found today! As we came to the end of the day's meanderings, we came across an old horse in the corner of a field: we christened it Dobbin! Dobbin was wearing the mankiest, reggedy old coat you've ever seen but he looked kindly so we stopped the car and I gave Dima a Polo mint to give to the horse but he was afraid that Dobbin would savage him! I got out and fed the poor old nag three mints: put a mint on the palm of my hand and let Dobbin do the rest: he made a lovely crunching sound with them that made me laugh. Here's a pic of me with Dobbin and then a pic of how he showed his gratitude!

yours truly feeding a mint to Dobbin

Dobbin says thanks DW!

DW