Testing Times for IPs
So, if your business was in crisis at the start of England's summer Test series against New Zealand why do you think you would have been hard pushed to find a turnaround specialist to come in and perform the necessary rescue?
TS discovered, much to its chagrin, that said experts were all otherwise engaged at the first day of the England vs New Zealand cricket test at Lord's cricket ground.
We finally managed to get in touch with one of the kings of collapse recovery Nick Hood of Begbies Traynor who seemed, given the background noise, to be enjoying the hospitality provided at the ground.‘The whole profession’s down here,’ he announced.
Well bully for you. Not that TS was at all put out at not being invited down for some well-timed corporate gladhanding.
Apart from the sunshine beers and the all-day eating, cricket’s a boring game anyway – it seems quite fitting that accountants love a game involving an English team that's not averse to a collapse or two itself.
Happy e-scribblings at BDO?
The big question for all watchers of BDO Stoy Hayward is - with the new management regime about to take over, will TS continue to receive the boss's thoughts in blog form?
There is, however, a little more doubt as to whether Simon Michaels, who takes over from Jeremy as BDO's UK managing partner, will write his own diary. He plans to review all the communications methods open to him in due course, TS understands.
Readers of Jeremy Newman's online missive about what goes on at the firm, do not despair. TS's man at 55 Baker Street tells us that Jeremy plans to continue writing the web diary when he moves up to be head of BDO International in July.
Our only advice, Simon, is this: if you've got a lot on your plate, diaries can be very therapeutic.
Be warned though, Jeremy has set the bar high with his electronic scribblings, so you'll have a lot to live up to....
Tut-tut, HMRC staff
Caught in the act! More than 600 staff at the taxman have been disciplined for accessing personal or sensitive data, Jane Kennedy, the minister in charge of the department, has said....
Disciplined means, in many cases, being sacked- ouch. TS is genuinely shocked. Somehow TS had this funny idea that if you were a tax official, you could spend the day merrily downloading people's tax returns for fun.
Want to know how much your boss owns? It's only a click away. after this revelation, some of the romance of working for HMRC has now disappeared.
But surely Dave Hartnett can access anyone's return, we asked the department. He's always cracking jokes about TS's complex tax schemes every time we go in. 'It applies to everyone,' a spokesman says.
'[The returns] are not there for your personal voyeuristic enjoyment,' he adds. It begs the question of which twisted individuals would actually derive any pleasure from reading tax returns.
It chills TS to the very core just thinking about it…
Thompson's giant bag
TS was down at Westminster on a typically changeable British summer's day, but the temperature was turned up more than a few notches as Jon Thompson faced Public Accounts Committee rottweilers.
As the new boy was given a tough time by the watchdogs and as they touched upon the fact that he's doing two jobs, TS couldn't help but notice the size of his briefcase.
In TS' humble opinion, Thompson could have comfortably fitted a baby elephant in the holdall such was the scale of the thing.
It somehow reminded TS of Mary Poppins' cavernous bag as he fielded questions from the PAC.
But then again, TS muses, if you're juggling two jobs, then you're going to need to have something sizeable enough to hold all those important papers, aren't you?
You never know, he might even have some qualified FDs for certain government departments in there somewhere….
