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Almost Independent!

Nor guides, nor rules, his sov'reign choice controul,
His body independent, as is his soul.
Richard Savage, (c1697 - 1743) in The Bastard

Words are such tricky things. Whatever care is taken, now and then something said or written comes back, rather like a spring onion too quickly eaten, to cause an unexpected moment of embarrassment.

On 21st March 2006, shortly after we had drawn attention to the registration at Companies House of CCHL (Community Cricket Holdings Limited) and ICUS (Institute of Cricket Umpires & Scorers), Tony Bastable posted on the ICUS website a statement from its Board quite rightly pointing out that we had revealed absolutely nothing, the information all being in the public domain anyway. They had made no announcement but it was "open to anyone with the time or burning necessity to access the Companies House website and trawl through the list of new incorporations." Hugely tedious that, but luckily ICUS security is such as to render that superfluous.

The reason for forming the companies was "research that showed" that ACU&S could not hope to tap businesses for funds mainly because it was unincorporated, amateur and volunteer-run. "Blue-chip Investor stakeholders, JVPs, and major sponsors" were not prepared to team up with such people. We suppose the research that showed this, although they do not say so, was that even Barrie Stuart-King had found it impossible. On the other hand, CCHL and ICUS - incorporated entities, and presumably run by full-time, multi-discipline professionals, all highly-qualified - had given "Barrie Stuart-King the 'official status and authority' that has enabled him to approach and introduce prospective founding stakeholder investors to Dave Brandon, Anthony Farnfield and other Directors to negotiate with." Directors were in the wings, we were told, waiting for funding to be formally confirmed. Waiting, and waiting.

Seemingly, not a lot has happened or at least not much has been announced, so maybe all these people were actually hanging around the stage door, and either drifted away out of sheer boredom or went off to a different show. You cannot really blame them. Just how long are they supposed to wait? Still, it is tough on Barrie who is a "director of Community Cricket Holdings Ltd because, unlike most of us, he has considerable expertise and a wide-ranging variety of contacts in the field of sports-related sponsorships." Please, please keep a straight face as you read this. They are being serious. Neither Bastable nor Stuart-King joke about these things. "The General Council of ACU&S not only knows about his work in this field" - good gracious, doesn't it just? - "but also approves it as a thoroughly sensible use of a scarce specialist resource." And, it's official, the moon actually is made of green cheese, a thoroughly sensible use of a scarce specialist cheese.

The spring onion moment though, comes when the ICUS Media Officer talks about the Companies House "official seal of approval" and the "much more formal and far stricter accounting procedures" ICUS will have to follow. Hence, he says, they have appointed NJHCo as the "companies' Independent Chartered Accountants." That will be for all three companies: CCHL, ICUS and On-Side Cricket Limited. The problem there is that NJHCo is just not "Independent." Naval Jehangir Heeramaneck - that's where the NJH comes from - is a director of each of the companies and, conveniently, each has the NJHCo office, Suite 1-43 at Tolworth Tower, Ewell Road, Surbiton as its registered office. Not quite as "Independent" as one was told, it would seem. You might even say that it was bordering on the incestuous. Plus, whilst NJHCo could prepare accounts for them, if they should ever have any to prepare, they will certainly need some properly "Independent" firm of chartered accountants to audit them. They knew that, of course. Perhaps they could approach ISP in Kenton. They should have some free time available now. Bb-rrrrr-ppppp! Sorry!