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2005-01-07 - 3:06 p.m.

For the first time in my life, I�ve acquired the services of an accountant. This isn�t because I�m earning such sloshing golden bucketloads of cold hard moolah that I can�t keep track of it all, but rather that the ape creatures of the Indus probably enter more coherent tax returns than I do, and I suspected that by spending money, I could save it, and at the same time not have night sweats about filling in forms. Especially when I have so much else that I could be focussing my night sweats on.

I had initially been assigned a chap called T0ny S1lver, which is the greatest name ever invented for an accountant and sounds like the kind of person that the Inland Revenue do not question, lest they find themselves upside down in a canal. Sadly, I am now at the mercy of one of his less-splendidly named colleagues.

Nevertheless, to see him in action is quite breathtaking. He approaches the tax return like a battle campaign, with the aim of taking as much cash off the government as possible, which can only be a good thing. It�s like having been bullied for years, and then suddenly your big psychotic brother gets home from the army and starts dispensing bloody playground justice, and you are so happy that someone is fighting back as you�ve previously pretty much just been huddled in the corner with the financial equivalent of badly soiled undercrackers.

My new guy is an inflated expenses pusher, though. I tell him what I spend on, say, stamps, and he says, �Oh, come on�you spend a bit more than THAT, don�t you�?� and so on with just about all my outgoings. I can see he�s going to get me hooked, and next year, I�ll probably be the expenses junkie pleading with him� �Come, on! Just let me have another �100 on printer cartridges. You know I�m good for it. I�m just a bit short at the moment��

All that said, having to consistently write out cheques associated more with down payments on nuclear submarine programmes is still unpleasant. Another year, another clearing out of that bank account and starting all over again. Thank god the travel industry is in such great shape this year�oh.

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