A glossary to take you into the new financial year, if not necessarily through it.

Bank: species of small Irish cash corner-shop soon to be subsumed into all-night monetary shopping mall, otherwise known as New Financial Entity (see below).

Non-Resident Account: vulgar heap of tax-free money held secretly in naively helpful Irish bank (q.v.) by dubious non-national in beige suit.

Bogus Non-Resident Account: pathetic store of hard-earned savings held in naively helpful Irish bank by entirely innocent God-fearing upstanding member of local community (in beige suit).

Liquidity Squeeze: hand-held device invented in Belmullet for extracting blood from turnips.

New Financial Entity: vast 24-hour shopping mall specialising in money-related products, e.g. money, money and money. See also "bank".

Profit-taking: needlessly cynical name for process by which selfless investors generously divest themselves of stocks and shares with the sole intention of cooling an overheated market.

Austerity Package: large gaily-wrapped parcel full of nutritious basic foodstuffs graciously handed out to newly-impoverished taxpayers at gates of Government Buildings.

Upside Potential: glossy spin given to faintest chance that company in depths of doldrums might actually make a profit some day.

Anti-Trust Case: utilitarian item of computer-designed utilitarian American luggage popularised by Bill Gates to compete with overpriced Louis Vuitton bags. Unkindly referred to by competing manufacturers as "the Edsel of suitcases".

Operating Climate: local weather conditions directly and solely responsible for company disasters, though never for company success. The operating climate may be many things, but never "balmy".

Tax Harmonisation: international Nirvana dreamed of by thousands of misunderstood, maverick, passionate, creative, footloose revenue officials eager to take up challenging jobs elsewhere, but preferably in Bermuda.

Asian Flu: debilitating seasonal ailment transmitted through narrow-gauge investment channels originating in Europe and the US. See also "operating climate".

Irish Financial Regulations: ?

Fiscal Rectitude: the unbearable rightness of being.

Money Laundering: complex steam-based technique of restoring crispness to used bank-notes. Not recommended for amateurs, who invariably discover it will not all come out in the wash.

Millennium Bug: grotesque slug-like creature which emerges once every 1,000 years to feed on fear of the unknown, misinformation technology, nerdy computer types and careless viral immunologists. Not to be confused with Asian flu (q.v.).

Euro: new and wildly over-researched pan-European chocolate bar to be launched in this country, after interminable marketing build-up, on January 1st.

Merger Negotiations: redundancies on way.

Merger Mania: lots of redundancies on way.

Market Turmoil: serious monetary losses by big players.

Market Turbulence: harmless puffs of wind which blow over inconsequential investors.

Pan-European Exchange: sudden national ditching of any utilitarian everyday item for newly fashionable replacement, as in mad rush for simple omelette pan recommended by Delia Smith.

Cohesion: discovery by big money players that you really can make more money working together than apart, though never as much as the really big players working on their own.

Fiscal Discipline: what the other guy should be practising.

Duty-free Lobby: luxurious glass-panelled atrium in the European Parliament building where alcoholic beverages and luxury goods can be purchased at knockdown prices by MEPs.

Times Square will resume on Thursday, December 10th