Laura wrote with an interesting question Hello, I am an accounting professor ... Last week, we discussed Step costs. I gave an example of step costs (janitors, supervisors) which typically have a large step. A student asked what type of cost would be represented by a small step? Can you provide a good example of a small step cost? I'd appreciate any help you could provide. Laura I replied, semi shamefully, as follows: Hi Laura, An interesting question that I’d never thought about before. Step costs can be looked at from two points of view: step costs such as supervision and management costs step fixed costs relating to costs associated with fixed assets As to size, we could imagine a number of situations that might cover this problem, even if they are all similar situations. A machine could, for example, be highly specialised but only be able to produce 50 units a week. It may be relatively inexpensive to buy and run but if demand grew suddenly from, say, 40 units a week to 75 units a week, a new machine would be needed … this situation contrasts the situation in which a supervisor supervises, say, 30 people … I’m not sure I’ve been as helpful as you would like but in your position I might be tempted to ask the student who asked the question to provide an example in answer to his own question! Alternatively, I have in the past added such a question to the end of an assignment or term paper for a few additional marks. At least someone somewhere will provide a decent solution even if our own brain cells are inadequate! Well, mine anyway! Best wishes and let me know what else you can come up with. DW

Sunday was a gardening day: legs like jelly after a couple of hours hard labour that I haven't done for a while. I tidied up the harb patch a bit, pruned the rose bushes, potted a thyme plant to help it get more established and then planted loads of herb seeds: chives, dill, parsley and a few more. The weather was windy as it tried to blow all of my seeds away ... it failed! I succeeded and am now looking forward to scads of herbs from mid Spring onwards. I also tidied up the netting that the clematis is attached to and that looks much better now: Mrs W wanted to completely redesign the netting but I resisted and carried on regardless. After all ... My football team, Burnley, were playing in the quarter final of the FA Cup and their match was televised ... I finished gardening just in time to wash myself up and settle down to watch the match that Burnley lost 2: 0 to Watford. So, good luck to Watford for the next round: the semi final. Making some progress on my new projects and I'll have a trial series of pages uploaded on a password protected section of my web site shortly ... you need to apply to get a password! Oh, on Saturday I made a ginger cake from the recipe sister Susan gave me and it's an absolute stunner: very simple to make and scrumptious to eat! DW

Richard Jones wrote I wonder if you can help. ... how to treat expenses such as professional fees, decorating etc that have been incurred pre-opening and which have been paid for out of start up capital. If I show the start up capital as the capital employed how do i show these 'expenses'in the top half of teh balance sheet. I hope you can help me Reagrds RJ I replied as follows: If I understand the problem correctly, we have a business that has, say £10,000 capital invested in pre incorporation expenses incurred: professional fees (assume £200), decorating (assume £150)... paid out of the £10,000 If that is correct then do the following: Debit Cash/Bank a/c £10,000 Credit Capital a/c £10,000 Debit Professional Fees £200 Credit Cash/Bank a/c £200 Debit Property Repairs a/c £150 Credit Cash/Bank a/c £150 On the other hand, if you mean: a business that has, say, £10,000 capital invested in pre incorporation expenses incurred: professional fees (assume £200), decorating (assume £150) ... paid out in addition to the capital investment of £10,000 Debit Cash/Bank a/c £10,000 Credit Capital a/c £10,000 Debit Professional Fees £200 Credit Capital a/c £200 Debit Property Repairs a/c £150 Credit Capital a/c £150 Let me know if you think the CPU problem has inflicted my own internal CPU but I think this is what you mean. Best wishes DW

I know I'm a bit late but let me say Congratulations to the women of the world on International Women's Day ... be happy on the 8th of March as they say in the former Soviet Union. Mrs W got a lovely suprise bunch of flowers: delivered to the door by Interflora this afternoon: courtesy of Dima and yours truly. DW

Lashing rain yesterday and driving winds made for a happy to be at home feeling. I was disappointed yesterday to find that the software I was hoping would help me to automate the conversion from Word file to HTML with all sorts of bells and whistles won't run with Office XP. I'm disappointed since I have to do a lot of manual work now until they sort out that problem. DW

I was a very happy chappy yesterday as I solved a problem that the whole world was befuddled by: my CPU usage is 100% problem. I've bored you with this before but my Task Manager kept telling me that my CPU was constantly 100% in use by something inside the SYSTEM process. NO idea what that meant and even having asked a number of techies I couldn't get rid of the problem UNTIL I found that the computer worked OK in Portsmouth and then again when I moved it from downstairs to upstairs at home ... I got the link: if I boot in battery mode or switch from mains to battery mode when the problem arises, the problem disappears. I can then reconnect the power supply and it will be fine for a while: maybe hours. I don't know the root cause of this problem but I am sharing my little success with as many people as possible in the hope that someone, somewhere will help out! DW

Someone somewhere in Abingdon Council has decided that they need TWO new Pelican crossings: light controlled pedestrian crossings. They have put one near where we live and I think it is in one of the most inappropriate places possible: I don't believe anyone crosses the road there. I'll monitor it ... must cost thousands and thousands to erect things like that. A Zebra crossing would have been much more appropriate and much less costly. The other one they built is on a BEND in the road nearer to town. Who are the people who think of these things? DW

My lawn looks really nice now: at night ... reminds me of tha brilliant lines from Gilbert and Sullivan about the young man who finds himself a wife: he fell in love with the rich attorney's daughter and she may very well pass for 43 in the dusk with the light behind her Still, the daffodils bulbs I planted last year are all coming into bloom now: the crocuses appeared a couple of weeks ago! Mrs W has led me to generate the phrase See man, give man job. Dima and I are being hounded at the moment as soon as we heave into Mrs W's view! Lovely weather in Portsmouth as me and my mate John took a walk along the prom in Southsea: huge P&O ferries floating by, massive tankers saling along into Portsmouth docks. The parks and gardens department down there keep their parks and gardens in excellent condition, even though the gardeners park their vans and lorries in the most outrageously illegal ways and places. The drives down and back were good, incident free and not busy and cluttered at all. Mrs W suggested that since I was there, I could call into the Chinese restaurant we ate at a while ago and order a take away ... since she'd thrown away the take away menu, we negotiated what I should order over the mobile phone as I stood outside in blustery cold weather with lorries hurtling past, passers by wondering what on earth I was doing ... worth it though and we tucked in on my arrival home at around 10pm. DW

Germine wanted information on accounting in Malaysia and how to meet a Brazilian accountant! Here's what I wrote; and having seen some of the goings on at the Carnival in rio this week, I'd like to say that there are some Brazilian looking accountants that I'd like to meet, too! Serious now: Hi Germine, Well, I don't know much about Malaysia and its accounting regime, but this is what I suggest you do: I went to www.iasplus.com and found that Malaysia doesn't use International Financial Reporting Standards (IAS). However, search this site for Malaysia and you will find a very useful page at http://www.iasplus.com/country/malaysia.htm that lists all of the latest changes in Malaysian accounting over the last two+ years. They also list these web sites: The Malaysian Institute of Accountants and The Malaysian Association of Certified Public Accountants. They also tell us that Malaysia is included in the IFAD GAAP Convergence Studies and they have a link for that too. Go to www.kpmg.com.sg which is KPMG's Singapore office which seems to be the headquarters of their work in Malaysia and you can see that they have links on Malaysia ... do a search on this site for Malaysia. PriceWaterhouseCoopers are at http://www.pwcglobal.com/: you can find their site for Malaysia from the country link and go to http://www.pwcglobal.com/my/eng/main/home/index.html As for finding Brazilian accountants, I suggest you follow the links I have given in my page on Brazilian accounting and find the contact us details and write to them: someone will probably reply! Best wishes and let me know if you need any more help on this: as a matter of interest, what is you interest in Malaysia and Brazil ... they don't seem connected to me!! DW

Have you been to see my page on how to begin the financial analysis part of a case study? Go on, ruin yourself ... the case is in the financial accounting section and it's called PhotoInd Ltd. I've had rave reviews! Off to Portsmouth tomorrow: let's see what that brings. That follows on a visit to the Quack to see if he needs to remove some skin!! All will be revealed! DW

Good grief, the weekend came and went and Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday came and went, well Wednesday almost. I learned about raclette from a lilly pad of Frogs ... sorry, from a room full of very nice French people. Joke ... don't be offended in the slightest. I spent a really nice Saturday evening with some friends in Didcot and they introduced me to raclette and raclette cheese. One of the party had done a round the Sahara Desert trip in 1985 and it was interesting talking to him about that: Michael Palin wasn't the first! We played scrabble and I didn't win: the only native English speaker in the room and I came second. Along the way we had attempts at fobbing us off with 'goy' and 'jean'(!) among others ... all other players were French. How could I lose? Well, I came second and only lost on the count back when I had to have my left over 'Q' deducted from my score. I'm making progress with my ideas for books (e books?) and presentations and goodness knows what. I am about to reveal my first one: introduction to management accounting. It's now late on Wednesday and I have been suffering from that computer problem I thought I'd got rid of a while back. It's a real puzzler but it's back now and won't go away. Not a virus, not a parasite ... who knows? DW

Follow up from Farshid led to additional goodies. By 10 am UK time this morning, I'll have changed www.duncanwil.co.uk/conflicts.html I don’t have a problem with identifying the 4 user groups; however it’s the conflict details I’m having trouble with. I know of one conflict of interest example which is: The shareholders might exhibit a degree of mistrust and be concerned that the directors will act in their own best interests even to the detriment of the company. There may even be hostility towards a potential competitor and the directors are unlikely to volunteer information about a company’s performance if that could be used by a competitor. Management might therefore be tempted to withhold information or to distort any figures that they do publish. Or, the company may hide debt figures to attract more investors. This is how the interests conflict as investors want clear figures of debt or other figures, but the management wants more investment. So, see what I did to follow up. DW

More productivity. Two more sets of questions leading to three more pages. New pages on Brazilian Accounting developments ... www.duncanwil.co.uk/brazacc.html Environmental and Sustainability Reporting ... www.duncanwil.co.uk/envsust.html Potential Conflicts of Interest in Financial Reprorting ... www.duncanwil.co.uk/conflicts.html More excellence from yours truly. DW

Grace asked about inflation accounting: for a university assignment by the look of it. Grace's time was severely limited so I gave her a top of the head response. Not much specific detail in what follows, but it gives a decent general overview. historical cost accounting (hca) is the situation in which accountants record revenue, expenditure and asset acquisition and disposal at historical cost: that is, the actual amounts of money, or money's worth, received or paid to complete the transaction. the big advantage of hca is that it leads to absolute certainty and it fits in perfectly with the cash flow statement. Hca tells us exactly what has been paid and what has been received and therefore there is no doubt about balance sheet amounts. The alternatives, where accountants attempt to take inflation into account, can lead to many problems. There have been several forms of current cost accounting, purchasing power accounting and so on since the mid 1970s that have been proposed as alternatives to hca. The reason the alternatives have not survived, and IAS 15 on inflation accounting is about to be replaced, if it hasn't been already, is that no one can agree on the best way to represent accounting values. Hca provides definite values, other methods don't! the disadvantages of hca include the fact that hca values can relate to transactions that could be a year old, 10 years old and as much as 100 years old. It's true that some businesses have old equipment and old stocks (inventories) that are still working well but that were bought a long time ago: the problem is that the acquisition value may be out of date and so the balance sheet is showing out of date values. Taxation problems come with inflation accounting. In times of high levels of inflation, profits are inflated and therefore the tax bill tends to increase: this is the reason that inflation accounting was developed in the UK and elsewhere in the 1970s and onwards. Guess what, though? Accountants found solutions to the inflation accounting problem that led to lower taxation but the Inland Revenue didn't like what the accountants had done and rejected the accountants' proposals ... and so it went on. comments: the UK and the IASC have both attempted to provide inflation accounting standards and both have had to admit defeat. The UK saw several inflation accounting committees in the 1970s and onwards as accountants attempted to get to grips with this issue. Then accounting standards appeared ... and disappeared. The problem is that when inflation is a problem, inflation accounting is a problem. When, as now, inflation is not a problem, no one cares about inflation accounting. However, government departments do still prepare current cost accounting statements! the way forward? this is a strange issue that tends to be unimportant as accountants don't like it. Many people believe that cash based accounting gives plenty of indication of the solution to inflation accounting problems. NOTE: if you want a considered answer from me on any subject that I can get to grips with, please give me enough time! DW

On Tuesday night there we were minding our own business when a wasp flew into the living room. In February. In England. Couldn't believe it! After a chase it disappeared. Then it reappeared an hour or so later after it had warmed up at which point I was able to stun it and fling it back outside! Forgot to tell you that on the drive back from Yorkshire I came down the M1 motorway ... nightmare. Got to junction 21 around Leicester and the signs said be prepared to queue for a while. We queued. And queued. And queued. Then the traffic on the other carriageway stopped completely: there was an accident there and they closed the motorway for miles. We plodded on and on and then after about an hour and around 10 miles we took off at normal speeds with nary a sign of why we had gone so slowly. I felt sorry for the other people on the other carriageway as they had come to a complete stop for miles behind the accident. Consider that so many people were put to great inconvenience by someone's dreadful driving. Watched with some amusement as some smart Alek broke through the barriers as he clearly felt he shouldn't be among the mass of people to have to stop and wait. As we reached him, so did a policeman and he was doubtless booked for his crime. Nevertheless, as the policeman returned, the miscreant didn't so he probably got home on time whilst the rest of them didn't. Selfish geezer! I hope his fine is massive. DW

There is an inscription just above the entrance to Stoodley Pike that I downloaded from this site: STOODLEY PIKE A PEACETIME MONUMENT ERECTED BY PUBLIC SUBSCRIPTION COMMENDED IN 1814 TO COMMEMORATE THE SURRENDER OF PARIS TO THE ALLIES AND FINISHED AFTER THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO WHEN PEACE WAS DECLAR- -ED IN 1815. BY A STRANGE COINCIDENCE THE PIKE FELL ON THE DAY THE RUSSIAN AMBASSADOR LEFT LONDON BEFORE THE DECLARATION OF WAR WITH RUSSIA AND WAS REBUILT WHEN PEACE WAS RESTORED 1856 REPAIRED AND LIGHTENING CONDUCTOR 1889 DW

Here's some snaps from my weekend away. for those of you who don't know here's a picture of a real dry stone wall. A dry stone wall is called dry because it has been built out of stone but WITHOUT cement or fixings of any kind: Here is the chronicle of the walk to Stoodley Pike in pics: the start of the walk ... the Pike just comes into view now Dima huddled for warmth ... the directional hoar frost! Don't tell Dima's mother but he forgot his hat, scarf, gloves ... we shared a pair of gloves! Now back to Harry Ramsden's, beginning with a lovely welcoming view on a freezing Friday night This is what fish and chips are all about! There are a couple of not in the least bit misty pics of our walk at Halifax Today that you might care to take a look at: good description of where we went together with details of other walks in the area. DW

Saturday morning 22 February seemed like a good time to take a walk. So sister Susan, Dima and I drove from Halifax to Mankinholes above Todmorden (home town for sister and I) and set off for Stoodley Pike: a huge blackened stone monument to Britain's victory over Napoleon at Waterloo. This walk is not far but it starts of with a long uphill drag through sheep farming land. Rough grass, no trees, rocky and muddy by turns. Very misty morning unfortunately, otherwise the views up and around the Calder Valley are spectacular at times. After half a mile or so, the walk reaches the edge of the moor and it's then a level walk to the Pike. Again, rocky and muddy but now with fog and a rattling, icy wind. Lesser mortals would have faded and turned back of course but we soldiered on! On a normal day the Pike is visible for miles but today we had to get to within 30 yards before it suddenly appeared out of the fog: it looks eery like this. Dima had sped on ahead and when we got to the Pike we found him huddled in a corner of it in the lee of the wind. Only Dima and I went up to the balcony of the Pike, Susan having done that many times! I last did this when I was 16 years old I think ... that's a while ago. One of the dangers of going into and up the monument is that the stairs are unlit and for a short distance it is pitch black ... and it has been known for sheep to come hurtling down the steps as the seek to avoid being trapped by humans. So a good shout and a few claps of the hand at the very beginning to alert the sheep that you are and hope that this gets them down BEFORE you start to climb. The wind brought hoar frost with it and the wind came in so strongly that it left the hoar frost arranged in patterns rather than just depositing it. Our journey down took us beyond the pike and down onto the nearby Longdon Road, more of a path, and to our family graveyard at Mankinholes where we paid our respects to parents, brothers and sister. On to the Top Brink pub where we tucked into gooey puddings and custard and cups of coffee! A rattling, bracing, 4 mile walk. Must go back in better weather! DW

Did you want to hear that the lawn is fine?: a little yellow rather than green but it has survived and the mornings have warmed up anyway. Spent the weekend in Yorkshire with brothers and sisters and their families and that was a good boozy lack of sleep do that was enjoyed by all. The big event was an evening in Guisely near Leeds at Harry Ramsden's 75 year old chip shop. Slap up dinner of fish, chips, mushy peas, scraps, tea, bread and butter: can't beat it. Vegetarianism suspended for one meal! Here's a story to make your hair curl. There's a school in West Yorkshire that has just had a new science block built. A good building by all accounts that should serve the community well enough. However, just when they thought they'd finished the building work and were thinking of moving in, they realised that they had forgotten to install the water and gas services ... not just in one or two rooms but in the entire block. I wonder if anyone has been hauled over the coals for that? A couple of true conversations for you: Number 1 Yorkshireman to Yorkshiremen at a small gathering where food and beer were on offer: mmmm, this Lancashire cheese is really good. Whilst Tyke is munching, Lancastrian enters the room and sidles up to the food Yorkshireman to Lancastrian: This Lancashire cheese is rubbish! Number 2 Man 1 enters toilet in a pub and greets Man 2 who is already there doing his business. Man 1: Hello, alright? Man 2: No, none of my lottery numbers came up. All my plans have gone awry! Man 1: Sorry for that! End of pithy conversation!! DW

The lawn: it's never been so frosty! Ever since I hacked at my grass we've had the deepest of deep frosts and since it's a north facing lawn it doesn't always warm up during the day. Mrs W said that "The house at the end has a very green lawn so why don't I ask them how they do it?" Pride well and truly besmirched I retorted with "My lawn is the best on the entire estate normally and it only started to go funny on me at the end of last summer as the new seed I sowed failed to take and the weedkiller that I applied killed the weeds, the grass and the *$!??*@ soil." So what's a chap to do? I will have the best lawn again, never fear, even if I have to returf the thing. It's only a small patch and if Chelsea football club can returf their entire football pitch in the middle of January, I'm sure I can do the same come the Spring. DW

Here's a thing: any electricians or radio hams out there? The other day I was in the kitchen listening to the radio and blethering with Dima when I picked up the kettle so that I could fill it and then make a cup of tea. As soon as I'd got the kettle away from its base the radio went funny. I thought, that's odd, and put it back: the radio sorted itself out. I picked up the kettle again to test it and again the radio went funny. This evening whilst attacking a pile of vegetables as I attempted to convince them that they ought to be a decent curry, I tried to fill the kettle again and again the radio went all skew whiff on me. This only happens with Radio 4, all other, inferior, stations being immune; and kettle and radio are about 1 metre apart. Any answers?? DW

At last here are a couple of snaps from my Dorchester sojourn! A Cob wall: what's a Cob wall? Well, you can see that it's thatched for a start and why would one thatch an ordinary wall? The story is that in the days when bricks were scarce, people would use cob to construct walls, houses and the like. Cob is a mixture of straw and earth all pounded together to form a paste that they then use to render the wall. Since Cob's not that stable in the rain, they thatch the top of the wall for protection and there you are. More historical excellence from you know who! The Toll House at the Abbey. A hexagonal hip roof for you! Notice the way the windows point in two directions: to see the traffic coming from left and right. The bridge that carried the toll in days of yore is to the right as we look at this picture. The bridge that's there now is a nineteenth century monstrosity: not Victorian gothic tripe but just a very plain old thing. Apparently the toll house has been a sweet shop in its time as well as being a toll house; and at the moment I am reliably informed it is owned by an architect! Hope you enjoyed these snaps! DW

I took a risk after we got back from Wantage: I mowed the lawn! I was sick and tired of looking at my tired and bedraggled lawn so even though the weather's cold and not ideal for lawn maintenance, I mowed it. I did it roughly overall but after I'd finished I felt a lot better. I then washed the car with icy cold water and sponge. I went in search of car shampoo but Mrs W informed me that I (that's me, myself and NOT, most definitely NOT, her) had thrown the bottle away when I had FINISHED it. Piffle! So, it's got the muck off but it still needs more cleaning. Then there's the mud inside the vehicle, too! Dima wore a pullover on Saturday night that showed off his athletic looking figure rather well. I said, why can't I have a pullover like that: to enahance and show off my physique in the same way. This is true: it turns out I was wearing exactly the same style of pullover as Dima but whilst his is burgundy mine is very dark grey. Oh! I then concluded that my pullover has either been hideously stretched or they got the design wrong and that's why I look like a sack of spuds!! Anybody want to see the proof? Can't win, eh? DW

Out and about again, folks! This time, Dima and I went rummaging around Wantage: an old and well establish small town around 8 miles or so from where we live. Looking at the Ordnance Survey map before we went out, we found lots of "Gallops": not knowing why, we sallied forth. We were also looking for evidence of the age of settlements from the maps, how things that were green and speckly on the map looked in real life, how contours panned out in reality. The gallops are for racing horses. Newbury race course in near by and we came across the Valley of the Racehorse with all of these gallops in it. Interesting to see something I'd never even thought of before but it makes perfect sense once you've realised what's happening! The villages around Wantage, Letcombe Bassett, Lambourn and so on are all old and well established. Whilst some of the properties were a bit cheaper than I thought they might be, they were still expensive. It's also still the case that there are many 15th, 16th and 17th century working men's cottages that are now inhabited by very wealthy people. So the cottage that your great, great, great, great grandparents lived in as they tilled the soil or hew stones and drew water from is now occupied by an architect or an accountant or a race horse trainer and he's paid £500,000 for it! There is a very attractive Alms House building in Lambourn: it has a central water well, too, just like the better maintained Alms Houses in Ewelme. We found a new Dobbin: remember the sad looking, old horse we found in January? We found two lithe, younger horses this time and as we ran towards them shouting "Dobbin, Dobbin!", they hurtled towards us with love and affection in their eyes. We talked across a gap between two fences, barbed wire attached to one of them; but the mint I held out to them didn't hold enough attraction for them. They were nervous, perhaps skittish and they wouldn't take the bait! Our short lived but intense relationship was smashed when some aging mountain bikers stopped 5 yards away from us as they plotted their route: maps in hand, bikes between their thighs and loud voices spewing from their mouths. Who knows what Dobbin and I could have gone on to achieve? We drove along the Ridgeway: a dirt track that was wet and a bit uneven. Reminded me of some of the easier driving I did in Malawi. The Beemer coped though. Every time I got out of the car mud seemed to fly at the soles of my shoes and firmly attach itself there. Even when I took the time to wipe it off with sticks, grass, gate posts, the small step between clean and mud caked was simply never far enough. Have some cleaning to do today. DW

Modern Britain: part infinite! As I was taking a walk into town the other day I suddenly noticed an area of pavement just outside our new Police Headquarters. It's fairly recently been dug up and repaired. Part of the pavement is a cycle path so there is a painted dividing line between pedestrian area and cycle path. Take a look at what the cheapskate company that dug up and then made the repairs has done. Of course, I had to dash out with camera in hand! Look at how they repainted the line: painting ONLY what they felt they needed to. Whatever happened to public spiritedness? The width of the gap between the two bits of new line painting is around half a meter (two feet for the wrinklies and crumblies among us!): hardly going to cost a vast fortune in paint and time is it? Thought you'd like to know that. It's amazing what you can do with digital photographs, too. These snaps were originally 320Kb EACH. With a bit of jiggery pokery, I get them down to 5 and 6Kb respectively ... of course, you can't see the orgy going on in the background now; but you wuldn't want to, would you? Would you? OK, email me and I'll send the unabridged versions! Just joking! DW

Saturday morning and it's another frosty start. The last two nights have been really frosty and this means that I can't mow my lawn. The lawn really needs a trim but I'm told that if you chop grass when it's frosty you could kill the stuff. Patience, patience, then! Do you know which country consumes more boxed chocolates than any other on earth? Go on have a guess. Alright I'll tell you: it's Russia. If you've ever been there and seen the locals dishing out boxes of chocs to each other you won't be surprised. 303 million kilogrammes of the stuff in 2001 with a value of around £870 million. Guess who PAYS the most for their boxed chocolates ... of course, WE do. The UK has the highest priced boxed chocolates, you will not be in the slightest surprised to hear: per capita expenditure on boxed chocolates reached £13.8 in 2001. That means we spent around £ 799,750,000 on boxed chocs in 2001. The UK really is a nation of chocoholics, with the largest chocolate consumption rate in Europe and a 30% share of the total European market in 2001. Even in the novelty sector, the smallest in the UK chocolate confectionery market, expenditure and consumption rates are higher than anywhere else in the world. Now, which country came second, do you think? The USA? China? The UK, even? You're in for a surprise as it's not even the supposedly amorous latin lovers: the French, the Italians or the Spaniards ... close though. It's Brazil with 168 million kg of the stuff. Brazil's the world's fifth largest producer of cocoa, too, by the way. Isn't it funny that boxes of chocs are being reported in kilogrammes? In case you're duff at arithmetic, 303 million kg = 303,000 tonnes. I got this chocolate info from Data Monitor. DW

Here's the follow up from O2, my mobile phone provider. I wrote the letter as mentioned below and lo and behold yesterday, Tuesday, without any phone call, letter or email message, they switched me back on. Another winner for British business. If there is any further follow up I'll let you know! Anybody want to call me now? I went to Cambridge on Saturday to see the kids, Daniel, Andrew and Fran: it was Andrew's umpteenth birthday and we had a great meal at the Chez Gerard restaurant in the city. Excellent food but the service was a bit slow. Luckily we weren't in a hurry so that didn't matter much. Had to remind Fran what a side plate was for as she plonked her baguette bits on the table as she tucked in! I am not known for my navigation skills when I am accompanied by someone but when I'm alone, as on Saturday, I can get to anywhere and back without a hitch. Well, almost. For some reason I can never leave Cambridge without taking a massive wrong turn first; and I did that on Saturday. No surpirse but just a frustrating waste of 20 mins or so as I get back on track. Otherwise, faultless. They didn't even throw me with the major snarl up about 10 miles out of Cambridge on the way in: I just picked a different route and snaked my way in from a different direction. There you go. Did I mention the brilliant PGTips television advert that I saw, involving a chicken trying on an LBD? Only seen it once so far but it had me in stitches: the rest of the family didn't see the joke for some reason. Odd that! Here's a thing: I need to do a massive email shot today/tomorrow and was dreading having to send them either one by one or with all the names visible in every message in every address line. Literally by accident I found that if you have Word as your email editor you can do a mail merge and have each message invididually crafted. Did you know that? Why didn't you tell me then? Am I the last to know? This Iraq nonsense is getting silly now. I'm not an expert and I'm not that interested in it but the level of debate on television and the radio here is dreadful. History will tell its own story but if historians rely on the output of the telly and the radio, some poor unfortunate children in the future are in for a shock! Toodle pip! DW

I got one of those dreadful letters that makes one wonder how some businesses survive. Remembering that I've been in Bosnia since last November and that I have been using my mobile phone in roaming mode for that period, I got a letter from my mobile phone provider, O2, BT as was. They began their letter with words to the effect of "Unfortunately, you are such a lousy bleeder that we have cut you off. Pay your bill immediately. Do it now." What has happened is that I have exceeded my limit, £200, by accident and even though I pay this bill by direct debit, meaning that it will AUTOMATICALLY be paid as per my agreement, they want their money NOW. If I have gone over the limit, I am sorry of course; but I wrote to Dominic Connolly, their Collections Manager, to say that I thought I was a long standing and valued customer rather than someone who should have bile vented on them. I also suggested that it might be a good thing for them that I had generated so much extra business for them with my trip and shouldn't they be happy about that rather than treating me like some pariah? In the old days, credit controllers (debt collectors) used to begin the process of collecting a debt by assuming that the current problem was due to an oversight and he was sure that the issue could be resolved nice and easily ... not now! Dominic couldn't even be bothered to tell me how much I should pay him NOW, either. DW

The past week has flown by as I've settled back in to life in good old England. I have come back to boost my vegetarian intake and so far have done well. Living for so long in a hotel is not good news so being back where I can shop and cook for my own grub is great! I increased my weight by around 4.5 kilogrammes in the final month or so of my stay in Bosnia: all because of living in a hotel. I have suffered such weight increases before when I've had extended stays in hotels. Not recommended! Austrian Airlines seems to like to hang on to me when I fly with them! This time, my journey with them was broken as their plane didn't make it back to Vienna until 2115 and I should have been in London by around that time. They blamed the weather at Heathrow for the delay; but when we did eventually get to Heathrow, conditions were suspiciously good. Apart from the first flight I had with Austrian, a couple of years agonow, I have yet to have a trouble free trip: they seem incapable of connecting two flights together according to their schedule. Moreover, on arrival at Sarajevo airport, I was told at check in that I was booked on the Vienna - Heathrow leg of my flight but nor for the Sarajevo - Vienna flight. The check in chappie checked and told me someone had cancelled my booking. Fortunately, the flight was not full so I travelled without a hitch ... apart from the delay at Vienna. The weather has been lovely here, too. Yesterday, for example, I went for a walk into town, the long way round, and spent an hour in crisp but gloriously sunny conditions. Normally, such ramblings are the kiss of death but the forecast is for more of such weather. So, well done! I have been walking around every day, too: at least 40 minutes a day in long, straight lines: to keep body and sould together in as strong a way as possible. Must be good for me! I came across a recipe for pancakes with cinnamon apples and made them: delicious. Really simple to make and they suit veggie and non veggie alike. I got the recipe from Waitrose. This link looks as if it's temporary; but I think the recipe will be on the site somewhere for a long time. Click here to go directly to the recipe. You don't need the toffee sauce you'll find in the recipe: just use jam or even icing sugar to give it a touch more sweetness; but even then, you don't need the extra calories. In case you're not from the UK and don't know what a Bramley apple is, it's a cooking apple as opposed to an eating apple: completely different texture and taste to an ordinary eating apple. DW

The street sweepers here in Sarajevo need to be trained! When it snows and is icy, someone spreads grit and sand all over the footpaths ... the street sweepers come along and sweep it all away! Let me be kind and assume they are recycling it. Still, they could reorganise it for a while to prevent clots like me slipping all over the place!! All being well I am leaving for the UK shortly: looking at the weather en route and in the UK has me concerned, however. I'll be back on line very shortly. DW

Vicki wrote back to say: Ah ha! I just re-read my assignment booklet and you are completely correct, it says that it is to be assumed 20% of the selling price. You are a genius!!! Thanks for your help Vicki My pleasure! DW

Just found out that Jake Thackray died on 28 December 2002. Jake was, for me anyway, a folk singer. I've just read his obituary from The Independent newspaper and I think they think he was something other than that. My opinion is based on his television appearances when I was growing up: his lasting impression on me, that is! "Oh, Sister Josephine ... what a bloody funny Nun you are" can never be the same again! DW

Friend Vicki wrote again, nice to hear from you Vicki, with this: Happy new year to you, I hope you had a good break. Sorry to bother you, I just wondered if you could explain how profit is calculated. I have sat my exam for the piece of coursework I spoke to you about before, however I ended up with a few odd numbers on my spreadsheet, the reason for this is that I needed to alter the profit to be calculated. The profit was to be assumed 20%, so I had this: costs * 1.2 however, my friend (on the same course) advised me that what I should do was: (costs/80)*100 The two give different answers but using his formula gave me what should be the correct figures. (The selling price was discussed in a tutorial where my tutor had said that they were the correct figures, at the same time as telling us about the problem with hours for the interpretation). I understand how my friends calculation works but I do not understand why this way is to be used because mathematically, it is not straight forward being increased by 20%. I hope I haven't confused you, and I would be grateful if you could advise me the correct way to calculate profit. Although the exam is now gone I want to know and understand how to do this properly. Thank you for your time, Vicki Not confused, I replied as follows: Hi Vicki, I had a good but all too short holiday thanks. Your problem is a typical problem both to solve and to get confused by. Here’s the explanation! If someone says that the selling price is Cost plus 20% of cost, then the following is true Cost = 100% of Cost Profit = 20% of Cost Selling Price = 120% of Cost In this case, the method for getting from Cost to Selling Price is Selling Price = Cost * 1.2 So far so good; and I can see that you understand that! Now, let’s assume that we are told that the Profit is to be 20% of Selling Price when the Cost is known to be £100. Aagh! What’s the Selling Price … what’s the Profit … ? Keep calm and use the same layout and apply the same logic: fill in what we know and then derive what we don’t know: This is what we know: Cost = £100 Profit = 20% of Selling Price Selling Price = £x This is the logic; Cost = £100 = 80% of Selling Price … can you see why? Profit = 20% of Selling Price Selling Price = £x = 100% of Selling Price Hence, the Cost MUST be £100/80% = £100/0.8 = £125 Hence, the Selling Price MUST be £125/80*100 = £156.25 Hence, the Profit MUST be 20% of the Selling price = 20% * £125 = £31.25 Does this all work out? Cost = £125.00 Profit = 31.25 Selling Price = £156.25 So, is Cost of £125 equal to 80% of £156.25 … YES! You might need to think about that a bit Vicki: it’s a cheap trick, of course, but such questions are very commonly asked at ALL levels of accounting education. Let me know of any more bother! Best wishes HTH DW

Physician heal thyself ... or what? This morning I was about to give a presentation to some important people and I received another bit of info that I NEEDED to insert ... it was on paper! I whipped out my digital, took a picture of the page and ran it through ABBYY FineReader ... it read it like a charm and it took me just two minutes to go from hard copy to brand new slide that just needed a bit of formatting. What a winner! DW

I am spending some time learning Photoshop 6: photo editing software and let me record here and now that it has possibly the worst Help files I've seen in a long time. DW

Here's a top tip that some of you might appreciate. Ever thought you'd like to have something in a Word file but all you've got is a hard copy? Don't have a scanner? If you have a digital camera, here's what you can do: Learn to take a decent digital photograph of the page or pages you are interested in, get some OCR software (there are full versions easily downloadable available: such as ABBYY FineReader) and the chances are it will be able to read the text into a Wrod file ... might also be able to put it into an Excel file if it's a table and the software's reasonably up to date. I do use a scanner and I have an up to date OCR software package but I thought I'd get ready for the day when I'm on the road and I want to input a file ... it works! There, another top tip from your truly! DW

Why did I choose the wood mouse as the basis of my disease? Look at Arthur Grosset's description of that mouse and you can work out why: "It is identified by its large ears, protruding eyes, long tail and dark brown fur with white underparts. They eat a wide variety of food including flower seeds as seen in these photos." Enough said! There's a very nice picture of me here, too! DW

Let's give it a name: my mouse abuse needs a name. Here are the contenders: Mus domesticusitis Micromystitis minutus Apodemustitis sylvaticus Apodemus flavicollisitis And the winner is Apodemustitis sylvaticus. From now on it has to be known that I am suffering from Apodemustitis sylvaticus until I'm cured. The well read among you will know that Mus domesticus is the house mouse Micromys minutus is the harvest mouse Apodemus sylvaticus is the wood mouse Apodemus flavicollis is the yellow necked mouse Thanks to the Staffordshire Biodiversity Action Plan people from whose site I robbed the latin names! DW

Here's an update you weren't expecting. I used to suffer from carpal tunnel syndrome as a result of years of mouse abuse. I am always on the edge of that syndrome still but now I've been hit by repetitive strain injury to the ends of three of the fingers on my right hand. It's painful although I am finding workarounds. The problem is that although I learned to touch type a long time ago, I developed some bad habits and now I am paying the price. So, sit up straight, don't look at the keyboard when you type and use ALL the keys, exactly as you are supposed to! Here endeth the lesson. DW

Saturday Morning at the Hotel Breakfast: early Saturday morning. As I left the room I told myself that I’d probably be the first down and that I’d be alone … the bananas would be safe with me: I was wrong! Status Quo was there: he of the white collarless shirt, jeans, black shiny shoes and a waistcoat. Honest, that’s how he dressed: early 40s I would think. Huge silver watch and nice aftershave or cologne. Quo said to the waiter: “What can I have for breakfast?” and the waiter, spotting the retro look and rocking backwards and forwards playing an air guitar said, quick as a flash: “Whatever you want”!!! Made me laugh! Here’s a warning: I don’t know this man but my experience of life has taught me that if a MAN (women are exempt so far) is wearing a big watch, he has problems of some kind. Maybe business, maybe personal. It’s like the men who wear expensive suits, shirts and ties, they carry expensive brief cases and then they wear cheap shoes: again suggests a problem. More than that, he sniffed and sniffed all the way through his breakfast: how common! There’s been a woman at the hotel all week who’s been smartly dressed, comes down at around the same time as me. She has changed her outfit every day, including today of course; but she’s worn the same shoes every day. Maybe they are her hotel shoes: after all, I wear my slippers around the hotel. Still, if not: a woman who changes her outfit regularly but NOT her shoes … isn’t that a poser? She says good morning every day and doesn’t act in an outrageous manner, doesn’t talk really loudly!! Two newbies appeared this morning and here is how I know they are newbies: newby 1: got to the bottom of the stairs and was faced with the door arrangement: frames, windows/glass in only one third of the fittings; no In or Out signs to guide us, no handles on the TWO doors … What does he do? Where does he go? He can see into the dining room but how does he get there? He stood still, standing close to the first door, looked furtively around for a few seconds as he appeared to be reviewing the bigger picture. As he did so, his hand slowly and carefully got to grips with the door and he ever so gently pushed to see if it would open! The door gave and he went through it. Classic body language kicked in then as he got to the middle of the room, in front of the breakfast bar and stood facing the bar, looking at the goods on offer and stood still, stroking his chin as he assessed the situation. newby 2: a repeat performance to the bottom of the stairs and the uncertainty over the doors. Newby 2 was transfixed almost, however, and then hopped from foot to foot as he started to panic. Then he launched at the second door, the one with the frosted glass in it! Of course it opened. He then almost faltered his way into the room, looking nervously from table to table as he wondered where he might be allowed to sit. He mouthed good morning to me as he launched at the first free table in the end, put his key down and then went over to the breakfast bar. I now assess that newby 2 is German: he got to the bar just about came to attention, almost clicking his heels together as he did so; and then bowed his head in that short, sharp downward movement that is so suggestive of a Teuton! No offence; but that’s how it went! The bananas were safe with me, today, in case you were worried! Oh and the bit about the waiter and the air guitar isn't true. The bit about the Status Quo looking bloke is true, though! Of course, I’d go mad if I thought someone was reporting on me in the way that I have just reported on the people here: assessing my newbiness, my watch (gentlemanly and unassuming of course!), how I got through the door … why I cut my banana with a knife and fork … where did I put those little packets of jam which, after all, I didn’t eat and didn’t leave on the table … and why oh why does he always wear the same slippers: apart from on Thursday when he was dressed in shirt, tie and excellent, highly polished, Church shoes! Let me record here and now that the Hotel Europa Garni in Sarajevo launders my shirts to the highest standards I’ve come across anywhere: clean, starchy and exceptionally well ironed. The crispiness stays in the shirt all day! Well done those plucky launderers. I’d say laundresses since I know they’re females but it would be sexist of me. It’s time to drift to the office but I can’t go as my digital camera batteries are just about to finish charging and I don’t want to miss the moment! DW

Frank pointed me at two Financial Times surveys yesterday: both concerning MBA programmes ... the world's best. They rank the programmes according to a list of variables. Being the way I am, I set up a correlation matrix for each of the two survey results and here is what I found: interesting stuff! I know it might be seen as a bit esoteric and far removed from GCSE and A level but since MBAs and other Business School offerings are at the top end of what we do, here is my full listing of correlation coefficients based on the FT’s surveys of International MBA and Executive MBA Programmes. Note the top ratings in both surveys are salary related issues … they are negative because the top ranking value is 1 and the bottom ranking is 100 or 50 depending on whether it’s the International MBA programme or the Executive MBA programme under review; whereas the highest salary is the largest number in its series. I should add that a recommendation from a friend/alumnus is also a key variable for the International MBA programme. I also think these results are telling because the only variables that are worthy of mention are salary and career prospects: highly focused people as I said last night. Art for art’s sake be damned! Notice that MBA students consider it a DISADVANTAGE to have someone on the faculty with a doctorate! Languages are relatively unimportant although the International stream sees them as more important than the executive stream: this makes sense! Even the international MBAs, though, don’t see the internationalisation of faculty as important: globalisation is clearly a home grown issue! The executive MBA students see research rankings as a barrier to a good programme whereas the international students see research as being among the more important features of a good MBA programme. One factor that isn’t included in the list of variables is the respondents’ age, length of work experience and similar factors: I think they would be revealing. Blogger doesn't cope with tables at all ... at least I can't get the HTML to stop it putting a HUGE blank space in this post. So, click here for the full version of this post: Duncan's analysis of the FT MBA Surveys You can find the raw data here on the FT.com web site, at least for a while: look for the MBA Rankings table in the middle of the page. Thanks to Frank for pointing me at these data. DW

From Lagos, Nigeria. please i need assistance with the standard costing: a technique at variance with modern management. it is a project topic i came across in CIMA magazine and i am now working on it. the problem is i haven't got enough materials on it. and if possible i would like to know companies that employ standard costing and companies that don't thank you for your assistance I replied as follows: Hi there! You need to tell me a bit about who you are, where you are and why you are doing this and then I'll help if I can. Ismaila wrote back: my name is ... ismaila and i reside in ... nigeria. i am also a CIMA foundation student. i want the information because i am carrying out a project on it for my wife who is at the lagos state university (LASU) here in nigeria.she is in her final year and we haven't got enough material for the project. all we want is some assistance. thank you for your assistance. I then asked: OK, Ismaila, give me a day or two and I'll tell you what I can. What kind of resources do you have there: do you have good textbooks eg by Drury and Horngren ... or even mine? Which Journals and magazines on accountancy, too? Ismaila responded: i have drury, lucey and a report on the topic by drury in cima magazine. if i can get more journals or reports it will do just fine. thank you so much. yours, ismaila Finally, I said: Hello again, Ismaila, The answer to your question is very confusing for a lot of people. The latest management accounting work will say that standard costing is old fashioned and we should all worry about activity based costing (ABC) and management (ABM), the balanced scorecard (BSC), Just in Time Management (JIT), Backflush Costing; and all sorts of other things. The reality is that the vast majority of businesses around the world that need a cost accounting system to provides valuable information for management decisions making could do worse than consider at least a partial standard costing system. Not all businesses can benefit from the BSC, ABC, ABM and so on: they simply don't have the expertise to install it and the expertise to use it. Take your own situation in Nigeria: take a look at the average small and medium sized business and assess the likelihood that it could sustain these MIS regimes. Are they even computerised? If computerised, are they able to afford the software to manage their data. If they don't have this software, is their accountant and the non financial staff able to program their own MIS to deal with these requests? The same applies in Europe, the USA, Australia and anywhere you care to name. Not everyone has and can use the more modern systems. So, back to Standard Costing (SC). SC is not always appropriate; but it is relatively simple to understand when we are discussing such things as material prices, wage rates and variable overhead rates. Consider the price and usage variances for materials, for example: with a bit of practice, they are really not that bad. Management all over the world has got used to standard costing variances and providing the right variances are calculated and reported on accurately, they are often satisfied with the accountant's variance analysis. Where SC goes wrong is when it is applied using out of date standards: I have been working over the last three years or so with organisations that have been using standards that are 10 or even 20 years old. Honestly! Clearly, standards need to be accurate and up to date. ABC was born out of frustration by non accountants: accountants can't claim the credit for its development. The problem the non accountants had was that SC was kept at a very general level and absorption costing was used in such a way as to be meaningless. Appropriate SC, up to date standards, accurate and timely reporting all help to keep SC useful. Moreover, when the management accountant works hand in hand with his production and other non financial managers, they can all use SC to provide good quality MIS information! This is a very brief overview of the situation Ismaila and I hope it helps you to kick start your reading and thinking ... for your wife, too! Best wishes DW

I just love this name and hope she doesn't mind me saying so: Pei Pei Lim wrote and asked Dear Mr.Duncan, I am [an] international student studying in Australia. I am now taking Management Accounting subjects for my summer course and i have read through ur website about costing system. But, however i am still not very clear about the difference between the overview of job consting system and the batch costing system since it's quite similar when presenting this system.So, can you please tell me more about batch and job costing system? Thank you. ... I am not surprised that you might find batch costing and job costing confusing. A job is generally defined as something that a business will do once: build one house in a certain style, repair your television with a certain problem … all one off. This means that we can accumulate the costs for that job and that job alone quite, or relatively, easily. A batch is a group of things that go together to comprise a job! In other words, we could consider the building of a batch of 10 identical tables or a batch of 1000 identical photographs being printed. We then consider the direct and indirect costs of ALL items together as the cost of the batch. Similarly, we absorb the costs of administration and other period costs on a batch by batch basis, too. I hope that’s clearer now but please let me know if you have any more questions and I hope you are nowhere near those terrible bush fires around Canberra. DW

You've just got to go and take a look at this: looks British, too, which came as a bit of a surprise. Wacky we might be but I didn't think we were that wacky: The world's first ... Is it legal is my question. DW

I forgot to say that I forgot to bring my second adapter to the office meaning that since I had let the laptop battery drain to 0 last night an the basis that it's good for it, I am now in the middle of balancing the charging of two separate batteries at the same time. In the end it means that my gloriously well thought out strategy of treating both batteries like gentlemen will probably end up by giving them both the pox! It's boiling here today. The thaw is well under way now and the heating in the office is intense. I wish I'd left my vest off now (by vest, dear American readers, I think I mean undershirt ... and what you call a vest is really a waistcoat: no offence, just trying to educate and cross any cultural divide!). Just sat for half an hour with the window wide open. I'm going to have to open it again in a minute. Snow is still falling off rooves a bit and last night I had to smile as I trudged my weary way. Remember I told you yesterday that there are warnings outside some buildings that snow could come crashing down at any moment: I hadn't anticipated the paranoia that that could breed. One chap, young too, wanted to go into the baker's and he stood back from the building and poised as if he were in the blocks about to set off in the 100 metre dash, then when he felt secure, he launched himself across the final three metres and flew through the door. Needless to say, no snow came tumbling down on him or anyone else within a senight!! Looked good, though. I can only imagine his exit, crust in hand!!! DW

Alright, I'm taking a break from all that! Here's a competition. See how many of you lovely people are sitting up and taking note. You know when you switch on your mobile phone after you let the battery drain completely after hearing the warning beep and saying, "Oh, in a minute" and then forgetting it completely and leaving it at home when you go to work then having to go back to get it ... ? Yeah? OK, well here's the question: What is the awe inspiring, uplifting and motivational message that I have put into my new mobile phone: see SIM card saga for details of the phone. Answers by email please and the winner will be the first to get it right. If there are no entrants then you may NEVER find out what that pesky message might be! Need a clue? OK, here: it's in Latin it's two words pxx vxxxxxxx Now I can't say fairer than that, can I? Supplementary question: what does pxx vxxxxxxx mean? What do you mean Latin's a dead language? It spawned this quiz didn't it? More than that, when you get the question in the pub quiz that asks what this phrase is and what it means, you won't be so angry then, will you? You can thank me later! DW

Did I tell you that I hurt my back last November: sitting badly in a chair that was designed for someone a lot shorter than 1.88 metres did it I think. I was in agony for two - three weeks and was stiff as a board for another couple of weeks and then careful for another shed load of weeks. Today I realised that I don't have any of the worries that I've been experiencing. I get out of bed like a twenty year old again ... well, OK, a twenty year old dog or cat; but still! A nice touch here in sunny Sarajevo as I walked around at the weekend and again today. Now that we've been hit by a thaw, there are warnings and barriers all over the place that show people where there could be a cascade of heavy snow and icicles falling from easing troughs and rooves. I don't think I've ever seen this kind of concern anywhere else. Well done those Sarajevans! DW

This just came in from Kansas: Hello, I was just perusing the net and came across your slides on assessing the affective domain. I was impressed by the quality of your material - thank you for access to such a valuable resource. Cindy There you are: another page well worth the trouble. Thanks Cindy DW

Forgot to mention that we had a thaw on Friday and again as I walked to the office yesterday, Saturday, morning. I wrote and told everyone how warm it was getting. I then walked past a window on the way to the loo later on to find that it was absolutely heaving it down with snow. No real thaw here then! DW

Am I sleep depreived and going round the twist or what? Last night, for the laugh, I decided I'd reset my alarm clock. Now, this clock is battery operated and it corrects itself every now and again by means of some radio based system. Now, clot that I am I KNOW that this clock sets itself to UK time. Can't think why it still does this since I am in the Balkans but it knows best. So I set the thing to Sarajevo time and was content. I slept well enough I think and woke up when the clock said 7:15. I immediately made the transformation from 7:15 to 8:15 and thought, whoopee, I've slept really well. Got into the shower straight away, threw on my glad rags and set off for breakfast. Something clicked and I said, "Hang on!" I went back to my room and checked my other chronometers ... when the clock said 7:15 it MEANT 7:15. For the first time since last November, the wretched thing had NOT reset itself to UK time. Bleeder! So, made myself a cup of coffee and suffered more rubbishEnglish from Sky News as they repeated the same stories that had appeared on Friday. The Robbie Fowler story of his potential transfer from Leeds United to Manchester City ran for THREE DAYS and he didn't even go in the end! Their latest annoyance is that they say BAGhdad instead of the more usual BaghDAD that we used to use. Something's wrong with that lot! Can't think who they think their audience comprises. DW

I felt a bit queasy for most of yesterday: I think it was due to a bad beer from the night before. Then I couldn't keep my eyes open after 9:30 pm so tumbled into bed. Still, who am I to go to bed early? A car alarm blared away under my bedroom window at around 12:40 am. I went back to sleep fairly easily. Then my mobile phone felt neglected and beep, beeped me awake at 2:40 am as it told me to recharge its batteries, so I did that then. I couldn't stand it by that time so I decided to read for a while. Then I slept until just after 7 am. That happened to me overnight, then! I was dawdling round the second hand car market yesterday evening and found a very nice looking 20 year old racing green Bentley Mulsanne for £8,000: 160,000 miles ... horrifically expensive to run and maintain; but it would look swish in the supermarket car park!! Mrs W can't understand why I was even thinking of replacing our already old car with an even older one!! DW

I see from the Sky News channel that they are showing Jurassic Park THREE on the Sky network on Saturday. Firstly, I didn't know they'd made a third film. Secondly, why did they bother? Surely, we'd all become hacked off by the time the second one ran its course? Incidentally, I saw, and enjoyed, the first Jurassic Park in Bowness on Windermere when it first came out. A flea pit of a cinema I seem to remember and we stayed in the dankest bed and breakfast you could imagine. The views as we drove back to the North East of England, though, were stunning. I'd like to go back just for the views alone! DW

This came in this morning I'm happy to report: Hi Duncan Just to let you know that I found your steps to building a Box and Whisker diagram in Excel absolutely wonderful. Many thanks.... Alison HTH as they say! DW

Just got an alert from amazon.com to say that Managerial Accounting: A Focus on Decision Making by Steve Jackson, Roby Sawyers "... will be released on December 31, 1969. You may order it now and we will ship it to you when it arrives" Bearing in mind that today is 15 January 2003, I'm afraid I can't wait! DW

Spoke too soon as the problem came back and even though another attack on Narrator did make a difference, there was something else lurking so I did ANOTHER System Restore. Good old Microsoft! While Windows XP is good, I have had to do three System Restores since last November: never had to do so many! DW

This might be helpful to you! A couple of weeks ago my computer slowed right down and stayed slow: CPU usage was constantly running at 100% even when I was doing nothing and there were no additional tasks suddenly running in the background that I knew about. After a few days of that I carried out a system RESTORE. That solved the problem but it was a bit of a pain as I lost of a couple of software installs and some data files. I know I could have saved the data files by putting them into My Documents before restoring! Today, at the end of my seminar on Activity Based Costing, I was shutting the computer down when Narrator opened itself. I closed it Narrator and switched off the computer. When I came to reboot, the system was really slow and Narrator opened again. I closed Narrator but not the computer. The system ground along really slowly again ... 100%CPU usage again. Rebooted again and although Narrator didn't open the system was still really sluggish. So, I opened Narrator and unchecked all the things it wanted to do for me and closed it down. INSTANTLY my system got back to normal: CPU usage bouncing along at a normal 4% ... 11% ... 1%. Maybe I found the cause of YOUR problem, too? Made me happy anyway! DW

As I was in the shower this morning I decided it was high time for me to raise my left hand very sharply, smash it into the soap dispenser that's attached to the wall and take a lump out of my skin. So I did that then! DW

I keep getting electric shocks as I wander around the offfice. Everything I wear is made of natural materials: cotton, wool and leather but still, touch the arm of my chair and tzzzz, touch the case of my computer and tzzzz, touch the mobile phone and tzzzz! I've checked and I'm the only person so energetically charged! Nippy again but the forecast is for +10 degrees today. We'll see! DW

It was very nippy today. Sarajevo woke up to temperatures ranging from -18 to -22 degrees across the city. Fortunately there wasn’t even so much as a breeze or brass monkeys would certainly have lost their bearings! I’ve faced this kind of situation in Almaty and despite the temperature being so low, if one were to stand still, it wouldn’t feel too bad. As soon as one starts walking, however, any exposed skin starts to feel the pinch: people with big noses and protruding ears would be at a disadvantage, for example. It’s a good job last night’s power cut didn’t last more than an hour or we’d all be shivering wrecks by now. Speaking of micro climates, in the ten minute walk from office to hotel I came across three separate zones: Zone 1 = icy underfoot Zone 2 = wet underfoot but not icy Zone 3 = dry underfoot and neither wet nor icy The air temperature felt constant across all zones at the -16 it was reported to be at 7 pm this evening. I did some teaching today: my first since August last year I think. Haven’t lost it either! The topic was cost behaviour analysis and the audience was experienced accountants from industry. There were around thirty of them and it went well enough I’d say: blether and excitement from yours truly with standard materials plus a few examples taken from the consultancies we’ve done that made the session much more interesting. A fairly good response to questions, too. It’s Activity Based Costing tomorrow. At the end of the session one of the participants came and showed me a Overhead Cost Summary from … believe this or believe it not … 1945: that’s the year 1945 not 1945 as in quarter to eight in the evening! Very neat and tidy it was too: a pity it was in Bosnian or I’d have purloined a copy. Just finished reading Alice Little and the Big Girl’s Blouse by Maggie Gibson. This is one of the books I got for Christmas and I recommend it unreservedly to absolutely everybody. Alice is a lovable clot and the Big Girl’s Blouse is a nance! I’ll review it shortly but don’t wait for that, get down to the bookshop and splash out on 266 pages of fantastic nonsense. I was smiling and laughing virtually the whole time that I was reading this book and I can’t say that about many books, can you? For anyone who’s interested Big Girl’s Blouse in Russian is dyevushka na blouska. Translate the whole title and we get Alice Malinkaya i dyevushka na blouska. So there! DW

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

There's a new Blog to read ... click here to go there. I have to confess that I haven't checked for similar Blogs; but I have to say that this issue concerns me deeply and I will rant and rave at the people who are guilty of ruining our language. I will name and shame and when appropriate I will be contacting the transgressors to point out to them the errors of their ways. DW

SIM Card Saga ends! Dear reader, I took the SIM card problem by the scruff of the neck and solved it. I took my three year old Nokia 7110 to the O2 shop in Oxford and after having briefly outlined my plight, they told me I could upgrade my phone for free ... I did and came away with a brand new Samsung A300 phone and with nothing at all to pay. I got it home, put the SIM card in, charged the battery and bob's your uncle! I am now mobile again. Anybody want to call me? DW

Take a trip to the this part of the Environment Agency's web site and try to find out the link between the Gilbert & Sullivanesque Lord High castor canadensis and the Great Smog of Old London Town of 1952! Answers on a postcard!!! DW

I was going to go to Cambridge today to meet up with Andrew and Fran (son and daughter) but there are so many flood alerts on my proposed route that it could take took long, and be too dangerous, to travel. So, had to call off the trip. A pity as this self same trip was called off on Monday of this week too. I checked the Environment Agency's web site for details: click on the Latest News link for details. Yesterday evening, drove to Oxford along the A34 and as we were sliding up the slip road we were faced with a huge queue of cars, vans and lorries ... we found the road flooded for around 50 yards/metres less than half a mile along the road and the massive queue was due to motorists passing through the follow water with extreme care. To my gung ho mind, they were all a bit overly cautious, especially the lorries as the right hand lane was barely wet and the left hand lane was only covered with a few inches of water. Still, it goes to show that an apparently tiny problem can have major consequences for us all. The opposite carriageway was suffering the same fate and that traffic tailed back around two miles or more. Anyway, the problem took around 4 minutes to clear in the end. So that was alright then! DW

SIM Card Saga Continued ... I told you about my attempts at replacing my mobile phone SIM Card ... spookily vanished on my trip home from Bosnia: of course I didn't just LOSE it, someone from MI5 or MI6 STOLE it from me en route ... anyway, here's my latest update on that SAGA. The second SIM card arrived yesterday morning and full of enthusiasm I ripped open the envelope with contents spilling all over the office floor. Retrieved the SIM card, took out the SIM card with trembling hands and with great respect due only to a SIM card I fitted it in the phone hoping against hope that it would work without the need for any further itervention from yours truly ... FI ... that's Forget It in duncspeak! So, I went through the rigmorole of talking to O2 and here is a summary of what happened: 0830 called O2 and told them the SIM card had arrived they said I'd be activated in two hours ... 1300 still not activated so called O2 to be told I was pending but now I'm activated ... went out to Dorchester to look at the topography of the place and at 1630 when I still hadn't been activated I called O2: the lad was stumped until I told him that I was using an Orange pay as you go SIM card in the phone in the meantime ... well, that's your problem, isn't it? You NEED to call Orange to get an UNLOCKING CODE from them ... Called Orange: er, why did they ask you to call us? This is an O2 problem: he was friendly and helpful but couldn't solve my problem ... remember, my mobile will accept an Orange SIM card and Mrs W's O2 SIM card with no bother ... called O2 again and retold the SAGA ... I am activated, there is no other problem, the network is working. Rashly, I suggested that going to an O2 shop might be a good idea so they can see it face to face and physically help me: good idea, go to a shop, he opined! Can you tell me what time the Oxford O2 shop closes today ... put on hold while he found out that he couldn't tell me and that I should look in Yellow Pages ... Orange, Yellow ... what's next: purple with RAGE? ... consulted Yellow Pages but couldn't find O2 so looked at Thompson Local and found it: called with more nervous anticipation to be told that they were closing in five minutes at 1730 ... tried the SIM card in Mrs W's mobile AND IT WORKED ... dashed downstairs and put the thing into my mobile AND IT WORKED ... for two seconds and then collapsed again ... thought it was a dicky connection within the phone and stuffed a bit of paper between the SIM card and the battery ... FAILED ... Keep reading this SAGA ... beat's Monty Python's Njorl's Saga if you ask me. DW

At last something on British television worth watching! I'll be putting a review in my film review section shortly but Billy Elliot has been the highlight of my viewing since I got home on 20 Dec 2002. Set in the North East of England with the backdrop of the 1980s miners' strike this is the folksy tale of the young lad who trades boxing for ballet dancing. The characterisations are simple but good and include a dotty granny, working class hero type father and brother, both miners, and a sprinkling of others. The cross dressing friend will lead to a wry smile or two and Billy is pencilled in for stardom ... perhaps. A social story along the lines of Kes, another must read and must see story about working class Northern England, and Purely Belter, set in Newcastle upon Tyne, Billy Elliot gives us a view of life in a mining community: it shows us how "men" live their lives and parade their prejudices for everyone to see; it gives us tiny insights into the Miners' Strike and it gives us some idea of what it takes to succeed through hard work ... not the instant rubbish that we see these days when music groups have become "boy bands" and "girl bands" and naturally talented groups of people like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones can never come together again. I'm ranting! The postman just came: let's see what he has showered on us today! DW

Thought you might like to see some basketball tricks!

The mystery basketball player

Did he score or not?

The midrif of the basketball player revealed!

DW

I wasn't going to log on at all today but something cropped up! The new year's eve celebrations went well with lots of good food provided by Mrs W and we had a family supper prior to young Master W going out to a party. We ate again at midnight, different food, and opened a bottle of Gardet Champagne 1983, very nice. Master W called just after midnight to wish us HNY. Mrs W and I made out little speeches in which we expressed our wishes for the coming year. Pottered around a bit and heard some really loud fireworks exploding somewhere nearby. Gawped at the television for a while and managed to nod off in the chair at around 0130. Mrs W already in the boudoir getting ready to zzzz when I went up at 0200. I set the VCR to record an episode of Mrs W's favourite "slop" (soap opera!) that was due to start at 0230 ... for some reason it failed to record. Must look into it! In case I haven't made it abundantly clear yet, the choice of things to watch on the television this Christmas here in the UK has been the worst I have ever known. There has been hour after hour of garbage with only the merest hint of Christmas running through them. The other thread that has been apparent has been homsexuality. Sorry to appear homophobic but British television now is thriving on homosexual men who have come out and are keen to be seen in very high profile situations wearing gold clittery jackets, sporting that semi lisp that they feel they need to have and, of course, camping it up. Who falls for this rubbish? Let them be homosexual. Let them be successful. Let them be good at what they do. But let them leave their sexuality at home: we don't label everyone else as heterosexual and make a fuss of how they aren't homosexual ... says a lot about modern Britain, I think! Unusually controversial for me, that! DW

Happy New Year to Everyone on the planet. OK so not everyone on the planet will read this, but it's the thought that counts! DW

I went to Oxford today to buy a couple of books and then took a walk to take a few snaps. Here are two that aren't representative of the City of Dreaming Spires but they're interesting in their own way so what the heck ... happy new year!

Car in a car park in St Clements

Bike on the Iffley Road

Can't explain the car parking tickets in the car except that it could be a trick to confuse Traffic Wardens ... they either book him immediately or they say, "I can't be bothered sorting that lot out". If they book him and he has the right sticker ... As for the bike, I REALLY want to know how the wheels of bikes can get bent like this. Seriously, how do they get so bent when they have been chained to a railing or wall like this bike has? I've seen so many bikes in this condition and it's always puzzled me. Answers on a postcard! DW

Some good Blogs on the bloggingbrits ring and I recommend you take a look at a few of them ... surf around the links you'll find and you'll see a lot of what many people would like the Internet to be: a free for all of the good and interesting ... people to people communication of useful things, chatting, exchanging ideas and so on. Good stuff and I'm happy to be doing my bit. Just under three hours to a UK new year. DW

I have decided to archive this Blog on a weekly rather than monthly basis from now on. One of today's big decisions and it makes me feel better anyway! DW

My laptop has a major problem that includes the system using 100% of the CPU all of the time the computer is switched on. The quick start buttons on the machine have also become disabled and whenever I press them I get a message from Internet Explorer advising me that downloading files can be dangerous ... including these that are being downloaded from my own C: drive! So I am currently using a very inefficient Pentium 4 laptop! I did a system restore back to 26 December and that cured the problem; and then undid it and will restore back to 27 December ... I'm curious to know what caused this problem. I have been fully virus protected and did a complete check yesterday then I uninstalled that anti virus software and installed and ran another anti virus package ... both came out clean. I just installed Windows XP Service Pack 1, by the way, if that strikes a chord with anyone experiencing similar problems! DW

The spider died! After my post of 28 Dec I decided to check out our arachnid friend only to find s/he was lifeless. I then decided to try to take a picture of it and it twitched a bit ... how does one force feed a spider, though? Took some snaps that didn't turn out that well and the spider stopped moving. Can anyone throw any light on why it decided to live in the middle of the ceiling? How many spiders have such a death wish? Do spiders simply set up their web or living space and then wait and wait or do they normally move on to search for food after a while? DW

I am appalled at the way that British television in particular, and the news media in general, are ruining the English language for British people. I will rant on this topic from time to time and might even open up a new section on my site to deal with it. I'm not expecting everyone to speak the Queen's English; but I am expecting people with influence to respect our language. DW

We've hit the big time! I told you yesterday that I'd applied to joing the bloggingbrits blogging ring ... subject to a small coding indiscretion by yours truly being corrected, I'm in! I've corrected it. Take a look at my new boss's own blog, though, to see the praise being heaped onto these humble shoulders. OK, I can't wait, this is part of what the boss has said: Time for ... a new Aortal site ... Duncan's Diurnal Diatribe A very funny chap who's also an accountant. Not that I've got anything against accountants, you understand ... Heck, just go and read the blog. It's good That appraisal can be found by clicking here. Well done DW! No idea what an Aortal site is? Neither had I until I clicked here. Looks like a good idea to me, especially since they are supporting the way that I work on the Web. DW

We bought some new cushions at the shops, then! That means we've got rid of those annoying "throws" that have adorned our settees for the last year and a half or so. DW

As you were on the SIM card issue ... it didn't work! Got the SIM card, called the O2 help line to get the usual friendly service with only one "yer wot" and was told to leave it for half an hour and then just get chatting. I left it for over an hour and then tried just to get chatting: no network coverage ... impetuous little me, I thought and waiting a while longer. After a while longer I tried again and still no network coverage. I called the help line and explained the prob: the young lady was fine until it came to trying to talk to the O2 network people when she got bored with waiting in a queue on my behalf so after three minutes or so she put me in the queue and said bye. The young lad in the network system was a tad brusque for me and couldn't find a problem so he said he'd investigate and all me back in five. He did call, after about ten, and told me that everything was clear on my account, with the network and so on so my problem was probably due to a duff SIM card and I need to call the help line again. Called the help line and the new young lady was a bit slow on the typing front so I had to repeat my saga. I told her I needed a new SIM card from her and she asked me if I realise that it would cost me £10 ... I told her that I'd already paid £10 for the SIM card that doesn't work and any new ones would be replacements for that ... I hope she understood that and doesn't start me off on an argument trail that will end up with stacks of frustration. Otherwise it's raining here today. DW

I lost my mobile phone SIM card as I travelled back home: goodness knows where but there you are. Good news, for the sake of a tenner I got a new one and cancelled the old. So, if you find my SIM card it's no good to you! Survived this afternoon's shopping: bit of food then cushions, decorative dishes for nuts, dried fruit and the like and a fitted sheet for a single bed!! DW

I've set up a link to Blogging Brits for some reason: see what comes of it! I took a look at a few of the sites on this ring and some of them are very learned sites indeed ... fawn ... respect ... cringe Let's see what comes of it all. DW