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Feb 16, 2024: Why is Labour still using the self-defeating, discredited ‘maxed out credit card’ analogy? In 1942, John Maynard Keynes proclaimed: “Let us not …
Oct 19, 2023: Get a free e-book! A reviewer of Financial Management and Accounting in the Public Sector wrote: “Gary Bandy has the ability of making complicated topics simple.” If …
Jun 25, 2023: Kwibuka29 Today I went to the Kigali Genocide Memorial. I thought it was important to find the time to go. I think the news coverage of the genocide in April …
Jun 24, 2023: Today is Umuganda Day The last Saturday of each month is Umuganda Day in Rwanda. This is the day that everyone — including tourists and expatriates — is encouraged to spend …
Jun 15, 2023: I always wanted to be a writer. It’s one reason I quit being a finance director at the age of 40. I worked in public finance jobs for 19 years and writing was my favourite part …
Jun 7, 2023: Taken me months to get around to this but finally www.garybandy.co.uk points to my Micro.blog site and I can delete the Squarespace one.
Jun 5, 2023: The best thing Apple announce today? The photos that will be able to recognise your pets’ faces.
May 19, 2023: Schadenfreude is a very underrated form of therapy.
May 5, 2023: Tonight’s live version of Sometimes by James plus choir and orchestra was magnificent. I hope the new album version is even half as good.
May 1, 2023: Amazing what you can do with an iPhone and some AI software (Luminar Neo in this case). Photo taken at Aysgarth Falls, Yorkshire, England.
Apr 27, 2023: Tomorrow is my 58th birthday and I am going to take the day off. The day after tomorrow is the 18th anniversary of the end of my last full-time, …
Apr 24, 2023: Check your invisibles After you’ve written a document in Word do you find the text does not look right? Are there unexpected line breaks or extra-wide spaces between some …
Apr 21, 2023: Triple your productivity. Write with your voice! There are authors who write their books by hand. With a pen or pencil. Until the industrial age this was the only way Writing by hand can help with …
Apr 20, 2023: Take 5 minutes to improve everything you write “I apologise for such a long letter - I didn’t have time to write a short one.” — Mark Twain. Accountants (and lots of other professionals, I’m sure) …
Apr 19, 2023: Writing tip: Short not shallow. Your reader has limited time. Do them a favour with your emails and reports and keep them as short as possible. If a document is short (it fits onto 1 …
Apr 18, 2023: Are you ready to take the stage? Here’s some advice for your first presentation to a large audience. I understand that many accountants are more at their keyboard than talking a …
Apr 17, 2023: TIP: Don’t use pie charts Pie charts are easy to create and they’re colourful and you might want to include lots of them in your documents and presentations. 👇 Let me explain …
Apr 14, 2023: Writing tip: use a style guide Does your organisation have a style guide? This is a document that sets out standards for written communication. It could cover preferred spellings, …
Apr 13, 2023: Pro tip: Use your body when presenting To deliver a successful accounting presentation, you need to write good content, design effective supporting visuals and rehearse. You also have to be …
Apr 12, 2023: 3 ways to write faster and make fewer mistakes 1. Use keyboard shortcuts There are shortcuts for most of the popular actions such as copy (Cmd/Ctrl + C), paste (Cmd/Ctrl + V), save (Cmd/Ctrl + S), …
Apr 12, 2023: Finally got around to creating a Gumroad shop for the various digital products I create.
Apr 11, 2023: How to remove the clutter from your charts If you want your reader to get your message you need to make your message clear. Don’t just copy and paste a chart from Excel into a Word document or …
Apr 6, 2023: An instant tip to make your writing more readable Set your margins and font-size so that the length of each line is around 65 characters. That’s two and a half alphabets. …
Apr 5, 2023: Why the tax year ends on 5 April The UK government does its financial planning and prepares financial statements using 1 April to 31 March as its financial year. The UK tax year ends, …
Apr 4, 2023: Don’t use $10 words In my first job as a qualified accountant I learned most of what I had to do from the files left by my predecessor. This included numerous reports and …
Apr 4, 2023: Thanks to everyone who entered the draw to win a signed copy of Financial Management and Accounting in the Public Sector. The winner is a student at …
Apr 3, 2023: STOP! Never send out your first draft. Once you have written your first draft you should not click Save and send it off to the audience. This is as true for a two paragraph email as for a …
Mar 30, 2023: Using AI to generate ideas for LinkedIn posts I asked ChatGPT for 25 ideas for posts about writing and presentation skills for accountants. This is what I got: The importance of clear and concise …
Mar 29, 2023: Three mistakes to avoid when presenting financial data Three mistakes to avoid when presenting financial data. Don’t overwhelm with details: While it’s important to provide context, avoid overwhelming …
Mar 28, 2023: Don’t give titles to your tables. Give them headlines. A picture paints a thousand words. A table of data could save you (and your reader) hundreds of words. But your table is a wasted opportunity if the …
Mar 27, 2023: A quick tip to improve your vocabulary Here’s a quick way to improve your writing. Whenever you find yourself using “very” for emphasis try to replace two words (very + {target}) with one …
Mar 26, 2023: May I have a word about… ‘straitjacket’ used as a verb
Mar 21, 2023: I’ve been creating a bento.me page. Check out bento.me/garybandy
Mar 21, 2023: London is a great city to walk in when the sun is shining. #nofilter
Mar 17, 2023: Something accountants can learn from writers… Writers get better through practice but they are also encouraged to read as much as they can, to learn from others. I think accountants who want to …
Mar 16, 2023: 5 reasons to improve your writing You’ve been writing since before you can remember. You’re better at writing now than you were in high school. No one complains about what you write. …
Mar 15, 2023: The accountant who gets the promotion, isn’t the one with the insight but the one who can explain the insight. That’s why you need to invest in …
Mar 14, 2023: Today is publication day for the new edition of Financial Management and Accounting in the Public Sector. To go with it I have created a set of pages …
Mar 10, 2023: Three simple tips to help find errors in your documents Once your report has the right words in the right order you still need to check it for mistakes. This requires a close-reading of the text and it can …
Mar 8, 2023: Four alternatives to boring audit reports Internal audit reports have not changed much since I wrote my first one in 1987. The technology has changed but not the content or structure. I wrote …
Mar 8, 2023: Over the last 2 months I have been writing a diary on the PFM Board managed by Mauro Napodano. My diary describes the process of writing my book from …
Mar 3, 2023: Stop writing finance reports like crime novels Finance reports are not crime novels so don’t write them as if they are! Whether writing an email or a 20-page report we tend to think of it needing a …
Mar 2, 2023: The best email is a short email I’ve shared before that, Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. When you …
Mar 1, 2023: I wrote a list of the five best books about how governments collect and spend taxes. Check it out. #PFM #publicfinance #tax
Feb 27, 2023: My free copies of the 3rd edition of Financial Management and Accounting in the Public Sector came today.
Feb 27, 2023: Three tips to help accountants to write faster 1️⃣ Use keyboard shortcuts Navigating documents and spreadsheets is quicker using the arrow keys than using a mouse or trackpad. There are shortcuts …
Feb 24, 2023: The new edition of my book, Financial Management and Accounting in the Public Sector, is not due for publication until 14th March but today I got an …
Feb 22, 2023: 4 tips for smart writing These are the rules for smart writing, the Axios way. Rephrase sentences to be shorter and clearer. Reformat paragraphs so what’s key stands …
Feb 21, 2023: You don’t have to be very good to be better than your peers To get a promotion you need to have something that makes you better than the competition. You might decide that for you that thing will be your …
Feb 17, 2023: How to format a chart for your reader Often the best way for numerical information to be communicated in a document or presentation slide is in a table. I’ve written before about the need …
Jan 12, 2023: The typesetter has sent the finished files for the 3rd edition of my #book to the printers. This is the cover. It’s published on 14 March but …
Aug 4, 2022: All hot bike rides should end with a beer in the garden
Aug 4, 2022: Todays office
Aug 1, 2022: View on the climb up to the hotel
Aug 1, 2022: Post bike ride beer #beerstagram
Aug 1, 2022: A room with a view
Feb 24, 2022: Dylan likes to know whatâs going on #goldenretriever
Dec 19, 2021: Lovely morning to walk the dog.
Dec 18, 2021: richardhawley in #Buxton tonight
Dec 4, 2021: Relaxing after a hard week
Nov 21, 2021: #billybragg in Sheffield City Hall
Sep 29, 2021: Went past our house today
Sep 5, 2021: Stage 1 of Tour of Britain #WorldChamp
Aug 29, 2021: Lord Marples bitter
Jun 23, 2021: Lovely pint of Five Kingdoms bitter this lunchtime at @steam #beerstagram
Jun 5, 2021: This is how Dylan tells us heâs hungry
Apr 3, 2021: Sunny afternoon
Jan 27, 2021: The waterâs lovely …
Jan 19, 2021: Enjoyed reading this. Itâs the internal monologue of a cyclist throughout a race (in 1977).
Dec 17, 2020: Time to buy more wrapping paper
Sep 28, 2020: Dylan having a tea break
Aug 17, 2020: Dylan was very excited to go to the #beach #shotoniphone
Aug 13, 2020: Dylan is happy there are still several troughs around the village.
May 15, 2020: The dog after a day at @prettypawspetcare
Apr 29, 2020: It is 15 years ago today that I last had a job as an employee.
Feb 26, 2020: In Dubai for work this week but found time to make the small crowd here a little bit bigger.
Oct 26, 2019: I would very much like a coat, please. #puppy
Oct 14, 2019: A Kazak #beerstagram
Oct 14, 2019: My workplace this week #pfm #training
Sep 14, 2019: At Tour of Britain finish line
Sep 7, 2019: Me and the puppy lounging on a Saturday night
Sep 2, 2019: Working today with a puppy asleep on my foot.
Aug 30, 2019: Rummaged through some record racks today for first time in 20 years
Aug 29, 2019: Having short break in Pembrokeshire
Aug 23, 2019: The cat doesnât want me to write today
Aug 2, 2019: Yusuf parfait. A fine end to dinner @hiccelondon
Jul 27, 2019: ianguy1 This one!
Jul 26, 2019: After at least 15 years without I have a new record player. First record played was by @billybraggofficial of course.
Jul 23, 2019: Gomez
Jul 20, 2019: At the @ibbagirlsschool AGM today. A chance for supporters to find out what we have done with their donations. And a live video link with the schools. …
Jul 20, 2019: Iâm cycling 100 miles in the Ride London-Surrey on 4 August. I hope to raise £1,000 for @ibbaschool to help girls in #SouthSudan get an education. …
Jul 8, 2019: Tour de France #beerstagram #tdf
Jul 7, 2019: Post bike ride #beerstagram
May 24, 2019: And next itâs #Courteeners
May 24, 2019: #Blossoms at Raise the Roof benefit show in #Manchester
Apr 6, 2019: What you need after an hour of queuing in a hot airport terminal #beerstagram
Apr 2, 2019: Enjoying lunch at @mestilhotel
Apr 1, 2019: Label says itâs brewed in Uganda at the source of the Nile (which I thought was in Rwanda). Whatever: itâs 5.6%. #beerstagram
Apr 1, 2019: Continuing my international #beerstagram with #NileSpecial
Mar 4, 2019: Latest of my #beerstagram posts. Plenty of tasty IPAs in BC like this one: Blue Buck Ale.
Mar 3, 2019: Came to #ucluelet to watch storms but so far itâs been perfect spring weather
Feb 10, 2019: Georgian Dublin
Feb 3, 2019: The spot where two spokes on my bike snapped. #walkhome
Feb 1, 2019: Fresh dusting of snow overnight
Jan 28, 2019: Some recycling to go to the Apple Store
Jan 26, 2019: Tate Britain still has its Christmas lights on
Jan 24, 2019: I got the author copies of my new book, International Public Financial Management: Essentials of Public Sector Accounting, last week #publicfinance …
Jan 23, 2019: I took an icy walk this afternoon
Jan 23, 2019: I’ve been working on creating this online course for the last few weeks. Will publish on Friday. #teachable #onlinecourse #accounting …
Jan 13, 2019: ianguy1 I’ve been de-cluttering and found this along with the setlist for the show
Jan 4, 2019: Cutting down on plastics this year
Nov 28, 2018: Iâm teaching public sector financial management today and rest of this week #pfm #mpa
Nov 24, 2018: A day out in the city where I was a student (long ago)
Nov 21, 2018: Summerâs over and the cat needs to keep warm
Nov 5, 2018: This morningâs view
Nov 2, 2018: Hereâs the sunset
Nov 2, 2018: Hoi Anâs local brew, beside the river at sunset
Nov 1, 2018: Another beer
Nov 1, 2018: Taking a break in Hanoi #rickshawtravel #lonelyplanet
Oct 30, 2018: Another local beer
Oct 30, 2018: I like to try the local beer
Oct 20, 2018: #billybragg In good form at Manchester Folk Festival tonight
Oct 19, 2018: I like cool, clear autumn days
Sep 29, 2018: Sunny Saturday morning elevenses
Sep 28, 2018: My new book will be out in January 2019. #CIPFA #Routledge #PFM #accounting
Sep 25, 2018: Day spent on some research at Gwent Police.
Sep 21, 2018: This is what Iâve been working on today
Sep 19, 2018: Off to the meeting of the trustees of Friends of Ibba Girls School today
Sep 5, 2018: Another pic from last weekâs balloon flight
Aug 12, 2018: Out walking the nearby lanes yesterday we picked some blackberries and now we have jam.
Aug 5, 2018: First tomato of the season
Aug 1, 2018: Iâd like to know the story behind this
Jul 27, 2018: Took this pic at top of the Aubisque in 2014 #TdF
Jul 3, 2018: Talking to #cipfa north east today about report writing and presentations
Jun 28, 2018: The cat is feeling the heat
Jun 27, 2018: Perfect day for a lunch ride
Jun 17, 2018: Very red sun at sunset tonight #nofilter
Jun 13, 2018: The view on our evening stroll
Jun 12, 2018: The cat is sulking at the top of the stairs
May 28, 2018: Finished the Transpennine Trail today with an 85 mile ride from Doncaster
May 23, 2018: Missed connection by 5 minutes so nearly an hour to wait in the Sheffield Tap
Apr 28, 2018: Sunny spring day in Copenhagen
Mar 13, 2018: Belle and Sebastian like a few dancers on stage
Mar 12, 2018: Belle and Sebastian on good form tonight
Mar 8, 2018: Cat in a box
Jan 13, 2018: Pint of Yorkshire bitter while I wait for my train.
Dec 31, 2017: All quiet in the centre of the village
Nov 25, 2017: Testing portrait mode on new phone
Nov 25, 2017: Which reminded me of this view from a toilet in the Atacama Desert in 2015
Nov 25, 2017: This is the view from the toilet on flight WY105 as we flew over Iran yesterday
Nov 22, 2017: Not bad here, too
Nov 16, 2017: Itâs not bad round here
Nov 12, 2017: Mam Tor looked good as a rode past today.
Oct 30, 2016: I really like the old part of Barcelona
Oct 30, 2016: The Sagrada Familia really is an amazing bit of architecture.
Oct 6, 2016: An Alberta traffic jam
Oct 4, 2016: Saw a few grizzly bears today @tweedsmuirparklodge
Oct 2, 2016: Took a helicopter flight up to some glaciers yesterday #exploreBC
Oct 1, 2016: Parking is hard to find in downtown Vancouver
Sep 26, 2016: Spot the rainbow
Sep 26, 2016: The Blue Lagoon near Reykjavik
Apr 25, 2015: Markets are done better in Scandinavia
Mar 8, 2015: Emmanuel Jal
Mar 1, 2015: Went to the Emirates Stadium today
Feb 20, 2015: Film night at Ibba School
Feb 14, 2015: Ibba girls playing football @ibbaschool
Feb 10, 2015: Ibba School from the air
Feb 9, 2015: Ibba’s County Education Office
Feb 8, 2015: At church in Ibba
Feb 7, 2015: Ibba girls in their uniforms today
Feb 6, 2015: Goalkeeper
Feb 6, 2015: Counting out the wages
Feb 5, 2015: With Santino, the new finance manager at Ibba School
Feb 4, 2015: Yoane’s transport
Feb 3, 2015: Inside a cosy Cessna flight to South Sudan
Feb 2, 2015: A view of Lake Victoria
Feb 2, 2015: A view of Lake Victoria
Dec 2, 2014: I’d never been to Leadenhall Market until yesterday
Dec 28, 2012: The London Eye
Oct 27, 2012: Wicklow Head lighthouse
Sep 28, 2012: LHR Terminal 5 is always busy
Sep 16, 2012: Lake Coniston in the autumn sunshine
Sep 9, 2012: Cat and Fiddle climb
Aug 10, 2012: Goliath burger at Burger Bar, Montreal
Jun 17, 2012: Cat on the roof