It has not gone unnoticed by TS that talk of increased transparency has been floating around the finance world for the last few years, despite spending most of that time at the bottom of a beer glass.

But frankly, anything that the UK has come up with so far to make finances more see-through is just peanuts to what they are doing over in Norway.

The Scandinavian country has just made available online the tax records of every single citizen in the nation.

This has meant that even details of the Norwegian royal family's income, as well as that of business tycoons and celebrities, are just a few clicks away.

But, given that the records cover everybody, it seems most have been using the new sense of openness to sneak a peak at the wages of neighbours and colleagues.

TS reckons it could do with this sort of regime here. It could certainly help when it next comes to pay rise negotiations to know what your work mates are taking home.