A financial expert offers his support to Keir

Man calls on bank to rethink how they calculate debt

Mr Graham Sawdust of Budleigh Salterton has called on the NatWest Bank to be more creative and open-minded in the way it thinks about debt.

'OK, so you could argue I owe them hundreds of thousands of pounds, and made an undertaking to pay it back in monthly instalments,” he admitted. “And there’s a way to see it that I’ve failed to make these payments for the last few months.

'But I think that’s a very narrow-minded way of considering wealth. I mean, how can you put a price on hearing the first cuckoo of spring? The feel of the sun on your face and the wind in your hair? The smile of your baby girl the first time she sees the King Charles spaniel puppy you’ve just bought her?'

When it was pointed out that Mr Sawdust hasn’t just bought a puppy and doesn’t have a daughter, he said these things were just examples, and the bank was being too literal yet again.

”It seems to me, if you want to know how wealthy a man is, you should count his friends.”

The bank said they were very happy to hear Mr Sawdust had such good friends, and hoped they had comfortable sofas as that’s where he’d be sleeping for the foreseeable future. 

Post Office admits pre-Horizon system Abacus may have been faulty

While the inquiry into the Horizon IT scandal continues its work, the Post Office has now admitted that the accounting system prior to Horizon may itself have been faulty. Abacus seemed at first glance to be a relatively straightforward rod and bead apparatus, but sub-postmasters have revealed they had their doubts about its accuracy soon after it was installed.

Raj Williams, who ran a small village post office, said problems started almost immediately after he received his Abacus from Post Office Counters. 'It just didn’t add up,' he told us. 'I’d be pushing these beads about for each transaction and at the end of the day what was on the Abacus didn’t match what I had in the till. I rang the Help Desk but they completely ticked me off. Told me to pick it up and put it down again.'

Meanwhile, The Post Office concedes there might have been an issue with sum devices, but insists nobody is making a drama out of it and any compensation due will be tabulated in the usual way.

A spokesperson for Fujitsu commented, 'At least we’re not in the frame for this one.'

Photo by Kati Hoehl on Unsplash