Botswanan teenager Nilima Bhagi has become the youngest person to achieve the AAT accounting qualification, TS hears. After teaching herself two modules, Nilima passed her exams at the age of 16 after 16 months of training - half the recommended time for the course, the AAT tells us.

Such precociousness could well shame all those other AAT students still struggling to pass through the first couple of modules. But what's of more concern to TS is that the AAT has opened the number-crunching floodgate for this Botswana-based book-keeper. Nilima is setting her sights on CIMA and ACCA qualifications.

She's already working as an in-house accountant for a company that works with the government of Botswana and handling the accounts of her dad's company.

But she's clearly not learned the first thing about the trade: the sooner someone sees sense and puts her on the fast track to a partnership, where she can attend events across the globe while palming off the real work to some lowly minion.