January is ‘chatting to the accountant’ time when he asks lots of questions about specific items of expenditure going back up to 18 months. My stock answer is ‘It’s my money and I will spend it how I like’, but as we all know, that’s not good enough for an eagle-eyed accountant. In my office at the moment is a pair of Amazon parrots whose screaming is ear piercing. After one particular screeching session, when neither my accountant nor I could hear each other speak, I turned around and told the noisy pair to shut up, to which came a very clear response of ‘**** off’.
