On Tuesday we traveled to Nottingham, the home of Robin Hood, Sherwood forest, and more importantly, the University of Nottingham.  We interviewed two professors from their accounting department, Diane Bowler and Thomas Spencer.  They were great.  The interview went very well.  It is very interesting to see how different UK Universities work compared to U.S. Universities.  They gave us a tour of the University and then shared their personal experiences with IFRS.  The university is massive with about 20,000 students.  They also took us on a tour of Northampton, bought us an excellent lunch at a fun pub (where we had great food and beer).  The pub was directly across from the Castle and the statue of Robin Hood. 

Nottingham was a fun city, with lots to see.  A great portion of the city has caves below it.  We got to tour a portion of the caves which was fun.  We also got to tour what they say is the oldest pub in the UK(Trip to Jerusalem).  The pub is built into a cave, with the back and parts of the ceiling being solid rock.  Very cool, and the beer was not bad either.

On Wednesday we traveled to Northamton to interview Damian Pickard and accounting professor at the University of Northampton.  Northampton is one of the largest cities in Great Britain.  So, we only did a little bit of site seeing after our interview (the town square area).  The interview itself was one of our best.  The professor at the time of the transition to IFRS, worked for EGG Bank and oversaw the transition for the bank.  EGG with the help of KPMG was the first company to issue IFRS statements when the EU made the transition to IFRS in 2005.  So, not only did he share how the University managed the transition and teach IFRS today, but he was able to speak to us about what he personally encountered at a private company.  He also spoke faster than anyone else I have ever spoken to.

Today we went to Southampton and interviewed Carol Masters, an accounting professor at the University of Southampton.  She was great.  She was able to speak to us about two universities, since she worked at Solent University in Southampton at the time of the transition to IFRS.  So, she was able to give us great data for two different universities.  After the interview we took a walking tour of the town.

Southampton was heavily bombed during WWII.  It is a port town and was the home of the Spitfire fighters.  Luckily, they saved and incorporated a lot of the remaining old buildings/walls and portions of them with the new.  We followed a couple mile walking path along the old city walls.  It was fun. 

Today was also Tyrrell’s birthday, so we added visiting two pubs to our walk(we did have lunch at one of them).    We were pretty tired when we got back to London, and ordered dinner in. 

We are nearing the end of our time in the UK.  We are off to Leicester tomorrow followed by Newcastle on Saturday.  We head to Scotland on Sunday… so more blog to follow in a few days…

Nottingham Trent University-Diane Bowler & Tom Spencer

Northampton University-Damian Pickard

Southampton University-Carol Masters