Chapter One, i, Getting the Sack, 4th November 1605

“Captain of the Guard,” cried a sentry, his voice echoing off the vaulted cellar ceiling.

The sound of footsteps filled the brief silence that the sentinel’s voice had created. Even the rats scurrying about the dust searching for spiders stopped as his voice boomed, bouncing off the brickwork. A stout soldier, with a grey beard, led a troop of four men each armed with a sword and carrying a pike. His hand rested on his sword and it was clear that although beautifully polished, his breastplate was old.

He smiled benignly to the sentry on duty. The protective plate was fashioned to fit a thin young man and the leather straps had only just managed to contain the expanded frame lashed on the final notch. On his head, he wore a helmet with a wool cap underneath to soften the feel of the metal and to keep his head and ears warm. His legs were clad in grey wool hose; they looked strong and slender, like those of a young man. His girth showed a love of taverns, ale and food, food and ale and perhaps a little more food with the ale.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Guy-Truth-about-Fawkes/dp/1520731787/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0

Life jackets on, Duncan and I edged toward the bow, leaning against the metal frame to scan the horizon for help. We lit cigarettes, exhaling into the dusk, careful to keep the smoke from the children.
Andrew—six foot two, built like a man who enjoyed his meals but carried them well—strained to lift the aft engine compartment’s cover. The rear deck yawned open, hydraulics hissing. Inside, the twin engines lay dormant.
Then we saw it. As Andrew bent to inspect the bay, the gun tucked into his belted jeans glared: a black-metal barrel, the grip and trigger guard exposed. A Browning 9mm, maybe. Or a Colt .45. NATO’s standard, or a killer’s souvenir. Not the crude threat of a revolver, but the quiet efficiency of a weapon designed to stop—not wound. The unspoken rule held. No gasps, no questions. Even the complainers found sudden interest in their shoes. Innocent, who’d wisely stayed below with Margaret, emerged. Andrew gestured to the engines, then ducked into the cabin to check the oil and fuel gauges.
Minutes ticked by. The truth pooled like spilled diesel: this wasn’t a quick fix. The captain’s pride curdled—his new engines, all power and no patience, had drunk us dry.
Night fell without ceremony. No sunset, just the clouds from that morning’s storm smothering the light like a wet rag.”
The cold crept in as the light bled away, gnawing at us all. I shifted uncomfortably, the pressure in my bladder turning urgent—another consequence of my obsessive hydration, a habit born from the sunstroke that had nearly killed me in Egypt the year before. Now, stranded on this godforsaken lake, my survival strategy had become my own private torment.
An hour slipped by with cruel efficiency when all you could do was stare at the pistol grip peeking from Andrew’s waistband and pretend not to notice. Kampala was still sixty minutes away—assuming we ever moved again. Our two-and-a-half-hour trip had already swollen to five, and the night wasn’t getting any warmer.
The cold does strange things to a body. My need to piss was now a white-hot distraction, made infinitely worse by Duncan’s running commentary.

The Corfu Crime Caper by Michael Fitzalan is set in Corfu Town. Aphrodite attends a suicide in order to sign the death certificate but becomes suspicious. Trying to help the investigating team, she opens up a Pandora’s box. Set on the wonderful island of Corfu and to celebrate the Corfu Literary Festival, this book takes you around some of the most beautiful parts of the island and Corfu town as the mystery of so many suicides is solved. Set in the 1974, smoking is endemic and old-fashioned ideas proliferate but with this you do get a pacy narrative and some sharp dialogue, so forgive the foibles of late twentieth century life and enjoy the entertaining mystery as it unfolds. We have moved a long way since nineteen-seventy-four but this story still resonates even in 2025.

Michael Fitzalan has written About Censern or ‘bean counters’ looks at business practice and calls for Compassionate capitalism. The island of Censern is business Utopia.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/About-Censern-Development-Michael-Fitzalan/dp/B0D8LD6MSZ/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

About-censern-bean-counter-is-a-plea-for-compassionate-capitalism-please-contribute – this book shows examples of good practice in business. About Censern is an anagram for Bean Counters and on this imaginary island, Utopia is created through using accountants properly. Please feel free to share stories that celebrate good practices . Please join us as we work for compassionate capitalism. This is the journey of one accountant and his discovery that business requires more involvement in treating the customer and workforce with respect and dignity.

Please post or send stories about corporate culture that we can incorporate in About Censern (Bean Counters) stories about compassion and humanity and tales of terrible practise that I can include in the book. First few chapters for you.

ABOUT
CENSERN
AN
ISLAND
WHERE
UTOPIA
WILL
BE
FOUNDED
Copyrighted Material
By
Michael
Fitzalan

Jaysen, a forensic accountant discovers why some of the Censern Island’s factories will be closing and why the disruptors will take their place. This is a comment on current business practices and a plea for compassionate corporate capitalism that will help restore humanity to the business world. Cut-throat business is a messy corporate suicide, which everyone ignores.

Michael Fitzalan is an author with three published books. He lives in Tooting, in south-west of London and this is his first satirical look at an ideal society, a Utopia for today.

‘About Censern Island Situation’ was a report by Jaysen Blunt this is how it came about and how it turned the fortunes of the island, creating the most successful economy in the world, the highest per capita wealth with the best health care and highest happiness rating of anywhere in the whole world. We start with numbers as Jaysen is a failed lawyer who became an accountant.
Visit Number One – The Big Brewery

At the office of the Dabwasser Brewery, in the town of Fitzalan, in the Bay of St. Michael, there is a smell of malt mashing in the air.

We arrive at the office of the island’s largest brewery.
The office is spacious, an old factory storeroom, high ceilinged and vast, the huge desk is beside the industrial, factory framed windows and looks dwarfed by the large space. Sitting behind the desk is Sven Boon, Managing Director of Dubwasser Brewery. Jaysen Blunt, chief accountant at Forensic United Chartered Accountants, strides confidently across the room like a prosecuting barrister returning to court to deliver the winning argument.

Ben: How was your flight?

He does not rise to meet his guest.
Why would he? He has been taught to, but he considers himself far too important to adopt ‘common courtesy’, the clue is in the common. He is one of those social climbers that believe that captains of industry are not hidebound by convention and frankly he cannot be bothered, he has not slept well since the board tried to limit his bonus at the last annual general meeting.

Jaysen: The flight was a smooth as silk.

He ignores the slight, he is used to it, self-important people, in his view, believe that they above all others and can behave like medieval ‘Lords of the Manor’, in the deluded belief that manners do not make man. Jaysen is used to entitlement removing the need for common decency. It is like a badge that allows you to forget any humanity.

Ben: Brilliant, we’ll be joined by our office manager William Sturgeon. I hope you don’t mind.

Jaysen: Of course, I know that the Abens-Ruten-Co took over the brewery and brought you in. What line were you in before?

Ben: I was in the shoe business. Then, three years ago, I was recruited from the mainland to turn increase sales domestically and to improve our export business.

Jaysen: Can you talk me through how this led to you falling from the premium brewery on the island to becoming a struggling entity that I am visiting to try to prevent receivership?

Ben looks like he has just been given an electric shock, he is disturbed by the forensic frankness. His eyes widen and he feels the collar of his shirt seem to get tighter like a noose. His heart hammers and his pulse races but externally, he manages to cover up his consternation with a charming smile and a return to good manners. If he is going to excoriated, he wants everyone to be seated at least, most of all himself so that the trembling in his left leg will not reveal his guilt at taking on the job for financial gain, knowing it was too big a step for his brain.

Ben: Of course, the company’s problems started way before I joined.

Jaysen: Absolutely, I have seen the balance sheets.

Ben: They show a dip in profits before I joined.

Jaysen: And a catastrophic collapse after, how long? How long have you been here?

Ben: Three years, but it was difficult to stop the downward slide, but we have a new strategy.

Jaysen: Oh, I understand, totally. I’m just trying to get a grip on why this is the third restructuring and why it involves redundancy of key personnel.

Ben: Take a seat. Are you familiar with our product? It’s billed as the smoothest beer you’ll ever taste.

Jaysen: Of course, I’ve done my research. These seats are extremely comfortable, I can smell the leather.

Ben: Thank you, finest Connolly leather with goose down filling, nothing but the best for the boardroom and my office.

Jaysen: Absolutely and so much more pleasant than plastic. No doubt the refit was tax deductible, and you needed the office revamped when you moved in.

Ben: Absolutely, everything needed a refit in here, but we’re not profligate. Look the Abens people say we have to save money, so when we replace the carpets in the office we’ll replace the Axminster from the Wiltshire Carpet Agency that exists on the island with the polyester carpet from China.

Jaysen: But isn’t polyester toxic and responsible for sick building syndrome.

Ben: It won’t be in the executive offices just the support staff, the telesales and engineers, mostly, the brewery itself is tiled.

Jaysen: What if they find out that you’re systematically poisoning them? Won’t they go on strike or protest in some other way, perhaps? They might be a bit peeved.

Ben: No matter, they won’t mind They’re too terrified about losing their jobs to make a fuss. The oil companies have been poisoning people for years. First lead in petrol and then formaldehyde in diesel, no one cares. In fact, the rich people’s switch to diesel is scandalous. They could all afford electric cars, but they don’t care. We are allowed to poison people with impunity. Unemployment is rife on the island, we pay them a pittance. As long as the shareholders are happy and getting a dividend, nothing else matters.

Jaysen: They won’t be for long with your bottom line.

Ben: That’s why you’re here.

Jaysen: I thought so.

Ben: Someone has to carry the fuel can.

Jaysen: I suppose you drive electric?

Ben: Certainly not, I have a farm track to negotiate.

Jaysen: Of course, you bought that estate in the Dell Ben region, near the mountains, lovely.

Ben: It’s hilly. So, we need a diesel. Formaldehyde, acetaldehyde and acrolein, they’re all in there, you be horrified at the terrible toxins that I pump out, but the car has a filter so I’m safe. I’ve no children to worry about. If people worry about particles from diesel getting into people’s brains, lungs and placenta, the oil companies on the island just commission a study that shows particles are present in the air from rubber tyres. People give up even though rubber particles are a lot less harmful than formaldehyde and acetaldehyde in your organs. See it’s ever so easy. As I say, I have no kids so if I poison a cyclist it doesn’t bother me, one less person whizzing past me on my Sunday walk in the park. No one really cares, kids or not. I certainly don’t, global warming won’t have an effect on me.

Jaysen: Even if you do have kids, it wouldn’t matter, I saw that detective show on BBC, where the detective drove a BMW X7, she had a wife who was pregnant, and they still owned a diesel.

Ben: You could not illustrate my point more clearly.

Jaysen: That car’s massive and they’re twice the price of an electric car. They were a modern couple, I thought they’ll have an electric car especially with a baby on the way, no they just had to have the biggest car ever.

Ben: See what I mean. We’ve known diesel is more toxic than petrol for years, but the P.R. people got hold of it, told everyone it was less polluting, and they believed it, even got Gordon Brown in England saying so.

Jaysen: I thought that, too.

Ben: Gullible, or what? Have you seen the sooty black clouds coming out of the exhaust when you start the engine. Diesel has been shown to be four times as polluting a petrol. Who cares? So, we’ll save money on the carpets in the offices, Chinese nylon and the Abens people will be pleased.

Jaysen: That’s very good, sir. Sadly, I read that you sell ninety per cent of your product to the carpet weavers. If everyone does this they’ll be a disaster.

Ben: Don’t worry, I met the Managing Directors at the Island Industry Conference and they’re all doing it. Standard practise, buy cheap.

Jaysen: Homegrown jobs just destroyed for the sake of a few hundred quid per office. Your sales will suffer.

Ben: You shouldn’t be so melodramatic, we’ll get the sales team to get new markets and they’ll make up the same sales we’ve lost in other markets. All will be well.

Jaysen: So why am I here?

Ben: To give me a reason to sack my office manager, Sturgeon, he should be with us soon.

Jaysen: That’s not really what my job is, sir.

Ben: It is now.

Jaysen: I think you are mistaken about sales, it’s not that easy. Your attitude to everything is for the best is positively Panglossian.

Ben: All is for the best in this ‘best all of possible worlds’.

The intercom on the desk, a small white box, from another era, lights up. Ben presses a button talks into the speaker to invite William Sturgeon into the lion’s den. They all greet each other, and Will is offered a chair.

Jaysen: Good morning Mr. Sturgeon, I’m Jaysen from the forensic accountants, we’re here to see what’s going wrong and how we can fix it.

Will: Good morning, please, call me Will.

Jaysen: Of course, and you can call me Jay. So how long have you been with the brewery?

Will: Twenty years. I joined when we made beer.

Jaysen: And you don’t, now?

Will: We are no longer brewers but chemists.

Jaysen: Profitable chemists.

Will: Not now, if it weren’t for the Carpet Weavers Club, we wouldn’t have many sales at all. The bar is subsidised by the company, and we offer a huge discount to them. It’s almost twenty-five per cent.

Jaysen: That’s your profit on the beer.

Will: Just about.

So, what’s gone wrong?

Will: Let me show you a film from fifteen years ago.

Leaning forward, Will slips a phone from his pocket and stabs a few buttons and miraculously the far wall becomes a white screen, a projector slides from its home in the roof and projects an image of the brewery trade mark of a waterfall inside a pint glass. The logo underneath reads: The most refreshing Beer on the Island of Censern fresh from the brewery in St. Michael. The films starts when Will presses his phone keypad.

He explains the video was shot when Dubwasser moved to the island. The announcer speaks to the camera as he moves around stainless-steel vessels. Slowly, it dawns on Jaysen that the narrator and guide, in the film, is Will in his late twenties.

Jaysen: That’s you, Will, you look so young!

Will: It was ten years ago when I first started to work for the company.

Announcer: We only use the finest hops and best malt, apart from adding yeast and water those are our main ingredients. We ferment the beer until it reaches five per cent to give it a hit and fuller flavour. It’s a premium price but a premium product. You deserve a decent pint.

Ben: the best in this ‘best all of possible worlds’.

Will on the speaker as the narrator: Your hard-earned cash cannot be better spent if you’re having a beer after work or with friends at the weekend. The film pauses.

Ben: Young Will was part of a promotional video we put out that some bright spark decided to turn into an advert. In those days we had seventy-five per cent of the island’s market for beer and it was growing.

Jaysen: You could do with those sort of sales. now!

Will: We certainly could. But the quality’s not there, now.

Jaysen: Explain what you mean, that’s interesting.

Will: Let me take you around the factory.

Ben: Please limit your brewery tour to the bare minimum, I need Jaysen back for lunch at twelve.

Will: Shall I send up some beer from the sample room for your lunch?

Ben: Certainly not, it’s bilge, we have a couple of bottles of Chassagne Montrachet to drink. The sooner you leave, the sooner you’ll be back.

Will: Thank you, sir.

Leaving the office, Jaysen and Will walk towards the vertical flow brewery.

Jaysen: What happens here?

Will: This is the mash tun area where traditionally malt is boiled to create a mash.

Jaysen: I can’t smell malt.

Will: Oh, we add that later as an artificial flavour and we send steam out of a chimney smelling of malt to add to the authenticity.

Jaysen: So that’s why I smelt malt, I thought you were mashing in when I arrived this morning.

Will: We haven’t used real malt in our brewing for years, the accountants tell us it’s too expensive, so we pick cheaper alternatives.

Jaysen: What do you use instead?

Will: Rice and sugar.

Jaysen: Why?

Will: It’s cheaper.

Jaysen: Is that it?

Will: It’s not for flavour.

Jaysen : What about your claim to only use only malt and hops?

Will: We no longer talk about malt and hops. We make no claims.

Jaysen: So, rice is the carbohydrate and protein, the sugar turns it into alcohol.

Will: You know it, it doesn’t taste the same, but the accountants insist we keep the price the same and make more profit, so we borrowed the idea from the mainland, they’ve been ‘brewing’ like this for many years. They spend millions on advertising and people buy enough of the product to keep the brands going.

Jaysen: Interesting. I’ve witnessed 300 beer brands disappearing despite local and national adverting campaigns.

Will: I have to admit that many of the beers we grew up with, or drank as teenagers, have gone.

Jaysen: And where do you add the hops? I haven’t seen any vessels. I was once told that adding hops at the beginning of the boil will create bitterness, the hops added during the middle of the boil will create flavour, and the hops added at the end of the boil will create aroma.

Will: We don’t add hops at any stage.

Jaysen: What? But beer is made of malt, hops and water. I’m incredulous! You do not add hops to your beer.

Will: No, just hop flavour, it comes in a liquid.

Jaysen: So, no hops at all.

Will: The flavour of hops goes in, the chemists have formulated a facsimile of what they feel has the same flavour and we add the essence.

Jaysen: A beer with hop oil.

Will: We do add hop pellets at the end, but they get smaller and smaller each year, more like a pill than a pellet. They used to be fuel cap size.

Jaysen: What yeast do you use?

Will: We don’t use yeast any more, we just use enzymes. This is John Andams our chief chemist.

John: Pleased to meet you. Don’t let Ben hear you, but we’re basically now just a chemical plant, it’s more chemistry than brewing.

Jaysen: So, let me get this right, correct me if I’m wrong. You used to use malt hops, water and yeast to make your product, which created its own carbonation.

John: Yes, that’s how brewing works, the sugars in the malt turn into alcohol when yeast is added to the wort or liquid and left to ferment, we add hops to balance the flavour of the ale and make it bitter.

Jaysen: I see

John: The yeast works on the sugars in the liquid and converts the maltose into alcohol, but you know all this surely, you’ve visited enough breweries, haven’t you? We make more money if we cut corners.

Jaysen: I just wanted clarity. So instead of malt, you use rice and sugar, is that right?

John: Yes, the accountants told us the malt was too expensive.

Jaysen: Rice and sugar aren’t on the ingredients.

John: To be fair, if you look at most beers, they just call themselves beer and technically they are. If they do put the ingredients on the label, they might chuck in a spoonful of malt and a pellet of hops in every batch of 100 barrels – 3,600 gallons or slightly over 12,000 litres. It’s gone in the tank so it’s an ingredient.

Jaysen: It’s slightly misleading wouldn’t you say.

John: All industries do it. Stick a Censern flag on a jacket and even though it came from Bangladesh, you can pass it off as finished or even made in Censern.

Jaysen: Is there any integrity in business anymore?

John: Brewing is a complicated process.

Jaysen: Not according to the craft brewers.

John: They are often referred to as the reason for our dire sales.

Jaysen: So why not use cheaper malt?

John: No such thing. Malt is an expensive commodity. At scale, you have to make sure there are no impurities. Breweries have blown up when that has happened, moving malt in augurs, a stone gets in, a spark and then, boom. Extra care has to be taken. Malt has to be spread on the floor and dampened, left for days.

Will: John’s right it is very costly to make malt because the cereal grain is converted into malt by soaking it in water, allowing it to sprout and then drying it to stop further growth, it takes skill, time and patience.

Jaysen: I get that. I understand. So why use rice and sugar, which doesn’t have the sophisticated different flavours or top notes of say a chocolate malt or a pale malt?

John: Cost cutting. As the administration keeps increasing tax on beer, we have to save money, or the cost of beer will rise.

Jaysen: That’s madness, the product is meant to be quality.

John: The consumer doesn’t realise.

Jaysen: I beg to differ. You are the only lager brewery on the island and yet your sales have dropped. Why?

John: Maybe people are switching from lager and the craft beers.

Jaysen: I’ve done research. Your sales have dropped forty per cent. Imports of lager have increased by forty per cent.

Will: Are you suggesting our customers are switching to imported lager?

Jaysen: Yes, the figures speak for themselves.

Will: But the imported beer is more expensive than ours.

Jaysen: Yes, but it tastes better.

John: We know that you can’t compete if you don’t use malt, these imports all have eastern European malt in them, much cheaper and it gives a rounder taste.

Jaysen: Yet the product has been shipped miles and is more costly for the consumer. The customer, who you think doesn’t care or can’t tell the difference, is choosing to buy the more expensive beer because it is a better-quality product, and they can tell the difference between your product and the imported beers.

Will: I’m sure they can’t .

Jaysen: They clearly can. What’s your solution?

John: We can’t change the process, we spent thousands on the new plant to cope with the increased production we were anticipating.

Jaysen: Before you tried to cheat the consumer by changing the product and fobbing them off with an inferior product.

John: That’s going a bit too far.

Will: I suppose it’s true.

Jaysen: You’ve just told me you use rice, sugar and water, enzymes and hop oil instead of proper hops. Your advertising five years ago was based around the purity of your product, and the three main ingredients added to water, which are malt, hops and yeast. Now, you only use water.

Will: We used to use water from a spring but now we just use the mains water. Of course, we have to add a water softener.

Jaysen: So, you produce a completely different product; the only similarity to the product that brought you profits is the beer has the same name.

Will: If the accountants say that we should substitute, we do as they say.

Jaysen: So, what’s your solution to the problem, Ben?

John: Ben’s asked us to bring down the specific gravity to ten point three six.

Jaysen: You started off at five per cent alcohol, and you’ve brought it down to four point two; that’s just over four per cent and your sales have dropped and now you want to drop it to three point six per cent, that’s a specific gravity of ten-thirty-six, which is weaker still? You’re flogging a premium beer, which is normally 5 per cent and you want to brew it at just over 3.5 per cent, it will taste so different.

Will: It will save us money on the duty.

Jaysen: Yes, but your drinkers are already drinking imports at five per cent, they will taste the difference.

John: Not necessarily.

Jaysen: Yes, definitely.

Will: We will keep the price the same.

Jaysen: Your former customers are already paying twenty-five per cent more for a proper product.

John: I think the tours over.

Jaysen and Will watch John storm off.

Will: This is serious.

Jaysen: I reckon you’ll lose another forty per cent when the change occurs.

Will: Seriously?

Jaysen: At least; time for you to work for one of the other two breweries.

Will: I’ve always enjoyed Godson’s beers.

Jaysen: The Black Horse is delicious.

Will: And five per cent. Strong enough.

Jaysen: I’d apply today. Who’s your largest customer?

Will: The carpet weavers, their bar is a social club, and they get a subsidy from the company so our beer’s half price.

Jaysen: So, people can drink twice as much. I get the picture.

Will: Yes, I think they provide twenty per cent of our trade.

Jaysen: That’s not to be sniffed at.

Will: It’s a big factory and the weavers have weddings, christenings and funerals there, well the receptions and wakes for those events because the church is a short walk, its practically the next to the factory. Without trying to be funny, the carpet factory is woven into the fabric of this part of the island.

Jaysen: I’m afraid that twenty per cent is going to fade.

Will: Because we’re diluting the beer too much?

Jaysen: No, the Island Business Consortium will kill it?

Will: The eye bee see? How?

Jaysen: Ben was telling me that all the businesses have agreed to buy nylon carpets from the Far East for every single refit over the next five years.

Will: But aren’t they responsible for sick building syndrome.

Jaysen: Don’t worry, the executive rooms will have wool carpets still.

Will: The only executive room in the whole building is Ben’s.

Jaysen: Oh, I see.

Will: Without any new contracts, the carpet factory will close.

Jaysen: In eighteen months, I reckon.

Will: Taking our trade with it.

Jaysen: You still have the pubs.

Will: They’ve been losing customers as we refuse to stock other beers but our own.

Jaysen: This is a mess. What will happen to all the workers at the carpet factory.

Will: What about here?

Jaysen: They’ll all go eventually, you won’t be able to sustain the dividend and CEO’s salary. Ben will most probably go back to running a shoe factory on the mainland.

Will: It’s a disaster.

Jaysen: That’s what happens when you read the Ladybird Books, ‘How to Run a Business in Victorian Britain’ and the ‘W.H. Smith Guide to Cost Cutting in Industry’?

Will: I’m glad you think me losing my job is funny. Why didn’t we listen to the salesmen and production people.

Jaysen: Why did you take the advice of accountants who know nothing about the business who have never owned a commercial enterprise, and do not understand your industry? You should know that they only ever look at the bottom-line.

Will: Ben thought we could cut cost and the sales force would make up any lost sales.

Jaysen: A sales force can’t compete with the imported brands; they’re selling an inferior product. The consumer will always go with quality at a fair price. Try to extract more than the product is worth and they’ll buy their beer elsewhere, try and fob them off with inferior products and they’ll never buy from you again.

Will: Where’s that from?

Jaysen: The book of Common Sense.

Will: What will happen?

Jaysen: The weavers will go, the brewery might do a reciprocal deal with another so they swap products, but no profit will be made, the facility will be kept running but will never make any money.

Will: I’ve seen it before on another island.

Jaysen: I’ve seen it, too often.

Will: I’m sure you have. In this case, the brewers imported an Australian beer that sold phenomenally well. Then, they moved to brewing the imported lager that doubled their sales but the accountants insisted on cost savings so they made the product weaker and weaker until people used to say don’t take the wee out of Tara-wum Lager, it needs all the flavour it can get. Within two years the brewery was turned into conference centre.

Jaysen: I’m not surprised.

Will: it’s a travesty, the brewery had been running since the seventeenth century and was destroyed in less than five years.

Jaysen: It happens all the time. Well, I’m off to see Batz Ice Cream and I advise you to start polishing up your C.V. before you face redundancy.

Will: Thank you for visiting us today, you’ve saved my bacon.

Jaysen; That’s strange, I think Batz use bacon fat in their products.

Visit Number Two – Batz Ice Cream

Jaysen walks into an almost identical office to the brewery he has just visited, except that all the walls are plastered, painted salmon pink and have pictures of ice cream vans and different ice cream brands on them.

Jaysen: All the offices look the same.

Adam: I’m afraid we all use the same warehouses, all designed by the same architect and built in the same year, 1888, if I recall correctly. We were a fishing island, herring, the most delicious of fish or so my grandmother tried to convince me. We stored and smoked kippers here and when the fashion for fish for breakfast waned so did our fortunes. We were not so much kippered but scuppered.

Jaysen: You’ve been skipper here for two years?

Adam: In February, absolutely right. I’ve learnt a lot about the business.

Jaysen: So, you’re new to ice cream.

Adam: If you can call it that, yes, I’m not an ice cream man born to the ice cream van. I grew up here and went to the army, then business school and worked for Zach and Mary, a premium ice cream operation in Maryland, we turned the Maryland operation into the Dairyland operation. I wanted to educate my children at home so when the post came up here it seemed like a good fit.

Jaysen: Yet the company is still in dire straits, is that correct?

Adam: I’m afraid so, quality brands are outselling us three to one. We were the premier brand twenty years ago with 90 per cent sales, now we’ll be lucky to muster twenty per cent.

Jaysen: So, what went wrong?

Adam: That’s what I wanted to know, I’ve asked for our production manager to come and see you here, he should be here within the next two minutes.

Jaysen: That’s very precise.

Adam: He is, that’s why we put him in charge of production.

Jaysen: Got it.

Adam, hearing a knock at the door: Come in.

Tom: Good morning, Adam, your secretary said I should come straight in.

Adam: Absolutely, Jaysen, Tom and I meet every morning at seven, so we’ve pretty much caught up. Tom Manning is our production manager and the most valuable member of the new team. Let me introduce you to Jaysen, Jaysen Blunt, chief accountant at Forensic United Chartered Accountants.

Tom: Pleased to meet you, ignore Adam, he thinks everyone is the most valuable member of the team, except himself, he never puts enough value on his contribution.

Jaysen: You seem a happy collegiate, buoyant steamship, so what’s the problem?

Tom: The amount of air in ice cream affects the taste, texture and appearance of the finished product. Higher aeration will produce a tastier and smoother ice cream.

Adam: A side effect of aeration is that the ice cream tends to melt quicker.

Jaysen: I appreciate you are keeping it simple for the layman, lawyer and accountant but we’ve all had our hands covered in ice cream when we’ve bought a ninety-nine or a Mr Whippy. It’s part of the experience.

Tom: The secret, I find is to bite a hole in the bottom and suck the ice cream through the end of the cone, it does involve titling your head back so it can be difficult to eat it on the move.

Adam: I just demolish as much of the ice cream in a few seconds as I can, leaving a small alpine peak that does not leak too much on the crispy cone.

Jaysen: I think I’m the only traditionalist in the room, eat the chocolate flake first and then slowly lick towards the peak, maybe my technique is wrong, but I always end up with ice-cream on the back of my fist.

Tom: There’s no right way or wrong to eat ice-cream. It’s the right way of making it that counts.

Adam: We sell ice cream by the litre not by the kilogramme.

Tom: Since air is free and ice cream is sold by volume rather than weight, economy ice creams tend to contain lots of air.

Adam: Whereas premium ice creams have less air, to create a luxurious, creamy mouth-feel, our brand has over seventy per cent aeration.

Jaysen: So, what’s the standard.

Tom: Looking back at the records, forty years ago, when this ice cream had ninety-five per cent of the market, the aeration was five per cent.

Adam: Most economy ice creams are aerated to about fifty percent.

Jaysen: So Batz was a premium product and sold well, with its five per cent.

Tom: From the records, it would suggest that.

Jaysen: So, what’s the problem?

Tom: Most of our competitors’ ice cream consists of fifty per cent aeration, the other fifty per cent is made of fat globules, ice crystals and sugar.

Jaysen: Hence the fact you put pork fat in the ice cream.

Tom: Of course, but that’s never been the problem.

Jaysen: For Muslim and Jewish customers it might be.

Tom: True.

Adam: The point is that we went from five per cent aeration to seventy-five per cent.

Jaysen: Wow! Okay let’s get this right, seventy-five.

Tom: The accountants insisted we charge the same but find cost-cutting measures. Once the production team had sourced the cheapest sugar beet rather than sugar cane. the cheapest flavours, aeration was the next step.

Jaysen: Why didn’t you say something?

Tom: I tried but they would not listen you cannot have much influence against accountants, I was just a flavour enhancer injector, nothing more or less.

Jaysen: That’s a shame. So, the product was compromised from the start.

Adam : Then, the American premium brands come in with 20 per cent aeration but with a superior product at a premium price and they still take away all our trade.

Jaysen: So, the public noticed the difference in quality and taste and were prepared to pay a steeper price for a product that delivered in taste and quality.

Tom: Exactly and the accountants told us no one would notice the difference.

Jaysen: How little they knew.

Tom: They chipped away at our costs consistently, and now we have twenty-five per cent of the sales, half the workforce and American brands continue to beat us hands down.

Jaysen: So why not produce a premium product?

Tom: We tried, test marketed and sampled it throughout the island but the trust in the brand has gone. People say you’d be bats to buy Batz ice-cream. We reduced the aeration, returned to sugar cane and proper vanilla pods from Madagascar but like a restaurant, once you get a bad reputation for poor quality, it’s almost impossible to shake off that stigma.

Jaysen: I presume you’ve been brought in to sugar the deal with the Americans and make their product under licence.

Adam: Precisely that; it’s the only way we can keep the factory going.

Jaysen: This is depressing.

Adam: We’ll have wafer thin margins, if you’ll pardon the pun but the worker’s jobs will be secure.

Jaysen: Really, how?

Adam: Naturally, lots of the workforce will retire over the next five years and recruitment has been frozen, though I’d like to get some more sales people, my budget will not allow it.

Jaysen: An ice cream firm with its assets frozen would be the only other option. (No one reacted to Jaysen’s facile comment). So, you’ll be a satellite for the America company.

Adam: With a correspondingly small status and cuts in salaries all around. The last CEO sent his children to the mainland to board school, I’ll be lucky to afford the nursery fees on the island.

Tom: My wife is a nursery nurse, otherwise I’d be back on the ferry, looking for work.

Jaysen: At least the government invests in public services.

Adam: I wouldn’t bank on it, we haven’t made a profit for five years so there’s no corporation tax taken from us.

Tom: There’s rumours that Dabwasser is going under and that will take out another raft of tax funding. The island’s going to pot.

Adam: To hell in a handcart.

Jaysen: So why is that?

Tom: We’re bleeding people to the mainland. There are more opportunities there, salaries are higher and frankly there’s a better infrastructure.

Adam: We’re allowing too much unfettered immigration. That’s our biggest problem, it’s putting a strain on services and leading to rising crime.

Tom: Not that old chestnut.

Jaysen: I’m confused, didn’t you invite people to come to the island as the population shrank so much during the war. You didn’t have enough people to run simple services and enough of a workforce to provide a ‘tax-take’ to run those services. There’s no money in the government’s kitty because you’re not generating profits.

Adam: We did need some more people, but it’s gone too far.

Jaysen: Not according to my figures, the population of the island has only just reached the size it was before the war.

Tom: And for the last fifty years, since the war, we’ve had signs saying: ‘No dogs, No pet snakes and No Mainlanders’ outside practically every single lodging house on the island. It’s ridiculous and you’re a Mainlander, anyhow.

Adam: I know but we don’t need more of them.

Tom: So, they gave you a ladder when you were drowning and now you’re pulling it up, leaving them to drown.

Jaysen: Let’s move on, I don’t think my investigation into the financial health of the company includes political discussion.

Tom: I’ve prepared the figures for you on this flash-drive, Adam’s got you a room for your work and you can leave the flash-drive at reception when you leave.

Adam: It should take you about an hour to harvest the data you need, but we’re giving you the boardroom for the whole day, so take as long as you like. We’ll check in occasionally to see if you want any more coffee or tea, but you should have calm and privacy in there.

Tom: If you need any more figures you can get reception to buzz me.

Jaysen: It should be straightforward, thank you.

Adam: You’re right. One thing we can do is produce diamond-hard information. Which company are you going to see, next?

Jaysen: I’m off to see Damson’s, the brewery overlooking the dam.

Tom: It’s a wonderful place, you’ll love it. They do a wonderful lunch at the Devil’s Dam Hotel, their trout terrine and baked carp are famous around here.

Jaysen: Thank you both for enlightening me; I feel I know the process well. Thank you for explaining the product and being frank about your corporate situation.

Tom: A problem shared and all that.

Adam: To be frank, we were selling an inferior product, thinking the consumer was too stupid to notice. They voted with their feet and our reputation is in tatters. Our customers switched to a premium product that was imported because it tasted good.

Tom: I think Adam is right there; we’re trying to rebuild the brand by increasing quality and ingredients but we’re in a nose dive and we might not be able to pull up.

Jaysen: I see it all the time, businesses follow some accountancy firm’s advice to cut costs without regard for the quality of the product. I’ve seen it all over the place.

Tom: Is it that common?

Jaysen: All too common, I’m afraid. The product suffers, the sales drop and then the product disappears from the shelves. It happens on the mainland as well. It’s a sorry state of affairs but I blame the companies. They should use accountants wisely, to keep cost under control but they should never let them interfere with the integrity of the product under any circumstances.

Adam: Accountants have too much say and too much power on the island.

Jaysen: I’m beginning to see that.

Tom: It think it might be too late, though.

Adam: We’ll be okay when the Americans take us over.

Jaysen: Will you really?

Tom: We won’t get more than a pittance for our license agreement.

Jaysen: Granted.

Adam: Also, half the factory staff will go and so will most of the salesforce. They won’t trust us with selling their product as theirs is premium, they won’t want to taint their product with a salesforce that’s been selling synthetic flavours, sugar and air instead of ice cream to the public and treating customers like idiots over decades. It’s not really a win for the community is it?

Jaysen: You’ll still be paid won’t you?

Adam: I would like to have turned this company around.

Jaysen: We all have dreams.

This is an excerpt form my latest book that blasts business practices from the 80s still used today and this Blog from Michael Fitzalan Books: ‘The Accountant and his comeuppance’ is an extract from a book that does to accounting what Animal Farm did for Communism.

Michael Fitzalan describes the night when he met the ghost of a child cruelly punished at Le Gothique at the Royal Patriotic Building in Wandsworth

Christmas Kerfuffle – A seasonal short story.  

Bill Kermode enjoyed living in the quiet backwater that was Furzedown, a south London suburb.

Meet Me Later

21 Days in Winter

Copyright 2023 by Michael Fitzalan

If a statue is toppled into the sea
Make a new face from a foundry
If someone sets your flag alight
Weave anew with colours bright
Injustice must make you seethe
I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe