2005-11-01 - 4:43 p.m.

The annual humiliation of seeing my accountant today, not because he is a nasty money ogre in any way but because whenever I walk into the offices, I feel like the spindliest little tiddler in the immense tossing ocean of the corporate world and that I really shouldn�t be there.

They should have some cute, colourful office for people just starting out where the desks are made of Lego and money is reduced to plastic disks in primary colours. (I was just about to say FisherPrice Waterhouse Coopers, but realised it might have looked as if I had set my own joke up, which I would never ever do).

When we start to go through the figures (and he has adjusted to reading all the commas as decimal points) and he starts pulling legitimate expenses (cinema tickets? Well, if you�re sure�) out of thin air, I get all tingly and start thinking about him like a big brother who has arrived to take on the bully boy who has been nicking all my lunch money in the corner of the playground. Of course, if the Inland Revenue ever started to fight back, he would be like a wounded amoeba against a giant mutant killer whale, but I get to feel financially tough, at least for an hour a year.

That said, it does cost me seven hundred pounds. But it�s worth it to have someone tell you that spending is a good thing.

I always end up telling him the kind of lies I tell to my doctor when they ask how much I drink, though.

�Why are your earnings down so much so far this year?�

�Well, er, I�ve been working on some personal projects and, erm, I�m trying to write a book, and, well, there�s a lot of speculative work involved in this business and, uh��

Then he makes a note saying something like �Has wasted two months doing sniff all � is he a risk to our corporate image?�

And then we laugh.