Ho Ho How on Earth did we make it to another festive holiday? Lidl in Stowmarket, Suffolk hold the 2023 record for the first official Christmas tree to be dragged out of storage and placed before bewildered customers. They embarrassed themselves with a bedraggled silver abomination stuck in their window on 15 August this year, ensuring their shoppers had more than four months of their lives hijacked by two vaguely disappointing days towards the end of December.
We can now tick off this year's John Lewis ad, yet another 'I'm a Celebrity' and opening a folded piece of low-grade cardboard signed by a person we saw ten minutes before and will see again in another half an hour to whom we will mumble something approximating to 'Merry Christmas'. We are just a pig in blanket, dried fowl and Love Actually away to being allowed to take down those ludicrous lights slung on the bay trees each side of our front door.
We in the NTI newsroom felt we had to add to the hail of greetings and salutations at the end of yet another busy and often incredible year for news. The CPD TAP desks have hung up their headphones, having posted for today (Friday 22 December) and can celebrate more than 47 hours of updating webcasts over the past calendar year.
There have been 173 CPD TAPs in 2023 covering all topics, updates, interviews and teaching opportunities. Of course each TAP and every minute is 'verfiable' and comes replete with a report you can show to your IPA or ICAEW monitor (be careful though, we have it on good authority that both of those Bodies know how long each CPD TAP is and will not brook any 'rounding up' - it's true, watch yourselves!).
It has been a genuine pleasure informing and updating you throughout the year and we are flexing ourselves for much more of the same in 2024.
Be good to yourselves.
