When your choice of radio stations is as bland, uncontroversial, and clearly censored as regards content that even smells remotely contentious as the various offerings that are available in the UAE, I have long preferred to set the ipod (now housing just short of 9,000 tracks) to shuffle when driving to and from work.
But more recently, and admittedly some years behind the rest of mankind (a symptom of 'getting old' I'm sure), I have discovered the pleasure of podcasts. Rather than trying to use the 'TuneIn Radio' app to download (in irritating real time) full radio shows from the UK, I am now to be found mixing up a little bit of Simon Mayo's Radio 2 show, with the best of Radio 4's Today programme each day, with educational lectures from the London School of Economics (recent discussion of Margaret Thatcher particularly good), and a sprinkling of The Economist. Oh, and the Simon Mayo/Mark Kermode weekly film review show from Radio 5.
A random sampling of these podcasts fits nicely into the 25-30 minute drive to and from work each day, and saves the need to pull my remaining hair out at the frustratingly banal drivvlings of the local stations (and I single out the adverts for particularly deep levels of awfulness).
Plus - the added bonus is the knowledge that, after 37 years, I have been able to finally take note from my Dad that there are aspects of Radio 4 that warrant listening to, in preference to the 'noise you kids like to call music'. Don't think I'll be tackling The Archers just yet though.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Monday, April 22, 2013
Accounting 101
It is our financial year end at DLA Piper. The time when everyone is metaphorically squeezed until every last drop of billable time is drained from us, so that it can be included on bills that can then be despatched to our clients before the end of the month.
As part of this exercise, and for curious reasons that I won't describe because I don't understand them, the firm is apparently entitled to include the value of these last-minute issued bills in this year's figures, regardless of the fact that the mere issuance of a bill is (whisper it quietly) not actual cash in the bank, nor even a guarantee of payment. Why we get to pat ourselves on the back for having achieved annual targets when this achievement seems based upon an exercise in false accounting that could ultimately come unstuck seems to me at least to be no grounds for celebration if, by coincidence, we just make our target.
Perhaps this explains why the likely achieving of annual targets will be greeted by little more than a pat on the back, and the immediate circulation of next year's targets (which will be this year's figures, plus an uplift designed to make everyone raise their eyebrows and echale from puffed up cheeks) which, come 1 May, we will begin pursuing all over again.
Am I too simplistic in my undertanding of accountancy I wonder?
As part of this exercise, and for curious reasons that I won't describe because I don't understand them, the firm is apparently entitled to include the value of these last-minute issued bills in this year's figures, regardless of the fact that the mere issuance of a bill is (whisper it quietly) not actual cash in the bank, nor even a guarantee of payment. Why we get to pat ourselves on the back for having achieved annual targets when this achievement seems based upon an exercise in false accounting that could ultimately come unstuck seems to me at least to be no grounds for celebration if, by coincidence, we just make our target.
Perhaps this explains why the likely achieving of annual targets will be greeted by little more than a pat on the back, and the immediate circulation of next year's targets (which will be this year's figures, plus an uplift designed to make everyone raise their eyebrows and echale from puffed up cheeks) which, come 1 May, we will begin pursuing all over again.
Am I too simplistic in my undertanding of accountancy I wonder?
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