These are my links for August 15th:

• Merrill's Luck Proves Unlucky For Britain - Forbes.com - This will come back to haunt Merrill Lynch and the City in the year's to come.
• Devotion to cheques stalls digital progress - Accountancy Age - "Technology has presented the opportunity to effectively eliminate cheques, but many customers like the option of being able to write a cheque, and struggle to move away from it"

  Yes, that's me. And half my client base too, at least

• Deloitte's Connolly takes home £5.7m - Accountancy Age - "John Connolly, UK senior partner and global chairman for Deloitte, has taken home £5.7m for the year, annual results released today reveal.

  In addition to Connolly's 22% rise in salary, a further 650 partners at the firm pocketed an average of £970,000 for the year to 31 May."

  And you wonder why they argue for lower taxes for the rich?

  But what I wonder is why the government asks people with such a rarified view of life for their opinion on anything.