A completely unsubstantiated and rather vicious rumour reached The Diary this week about a well-known tax partner (if that’s not too much of a paradox) and his, er, unorthodox methods of dispensing advice – rumours so bizarre they surely cannot have been made up.

Perhaps responding to clients’ love of partners who take a ‘hands on’ approach to dispensing advice, this partner apparently dishes out pearls of wisdom on outsmarting those pesky kids from HM Revenue & Customs via – wait for it – a puppet.