‘My place or yours?’ I asked my trusted business adviser in the Big Four, trying to limit the damage on an old VAT issue that had found its way onto my desk while everyone else breathed a sigh of relief.

Explaining old VAT issues to the Board has a tendency to put you squarely in the box of ‘deliverer of bad news’ with career limiting, messenger-shooting type outcomes a distinct possibility. Given all this, I was not going to go shy on spending money on advice.

‘I think we’ll head out to your offices. And as it’s an early start, maybe there could be croissants?’

I enjoy a trip out to a practice firm; I like to note the latest developments in the client lobby arms race. When I joined one of the big five (age spoiler alert), clients were not really encouraged to come to the office and those that did politely waited on the lobby sofas.