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