There has been no doubt about it, even without any mention of football, it has been a good summer. Normally for a few weeks in August, offices drift into the work equivalent of an afternoon doze by the pool. This year the prolonged heat has brought the nap forward and work has been quite pleasant. My only misstep was to video call the CFO in New York from the office balcony, which only served to remind her how much the office rent was, not counting the business rates which my predecessor forgot to budget for. Even then, after an initial burst of ‘Jeez Louise, you British people sure like a tax,’ she retreated into mild grumbling about the even hotter weather in New York.

As this was my first summer in the company, I was pleased to learn about ‘Summer Fridays’, whereby everyone would get to work at home during the months of July and August. Some companies have used working at home as a scam to push office costs on to the individual or local small businesses. We, however, managed to rent an office so much bigger than we need (again before my time I hasten to add) that we have an entire meeting room floor and aircon so aggressive and impossible to turn down that staff have been issued with blankets for the coldest meeting room.

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