Like many of you I’m sure, no emails are more important to me than those that arrive from eIFRS. I’ve been known to miss vital events (deaths in the family, that kind of thing) because of not checking my email, but whenever I see eIFRS is the sender I click on it immediately, no matter what else I’m doing. But sometimes, believe it or not, I feel I could have waited. I mean, here are some of the noteworthy announcements that showed up in my email this year:

• The IFRS Foundation is pleased to announce the publication of the following translation: Romanian translation of the 2015 Red Book…
• On 26 June 2015, the National Bank of Angola (BNA) announced a new regulation that requires some Angolan banks to begin using IFRS from 1 January 2016 and the remaining Angolan banks to begin using IFRS from 1 January 2017…
• Banks in Ukraine will be required to prepare their quarterly financial statements in accordance with IFRS starting with the first quarter of 2016…
• The IFRS Foundation is pleased to announce the publication of the following translations: Finnish translation of IFRS 9 Financial Instruments, issued by the IASB in English in July 2014…

I guess I must at some point have selected some kind of super-geek option whereby I receive absolutely every kind of release, because the portion of the global IFRS audience that would care about such developments must surely be tiny. Actually, the news about Finland was of more interest than it might have been, because it coincidentally arrived just a few days before I was heading off for a vacation in Helsinki and Lapland (strangely, once I was there, IFRS 9 never came up). But let’s face it, most people never think about Finland at all, unless the soccer team happens to qualify for an international tournament. So I was going to write about how the IASB ought to stop bothering us with these trivial information updates…

But then my mole at the IASB told me I shouldn’t complain, because plenty of even less important news releases are drafted and then discarded at a late stage, once better judgment is applied. I frankly doubted this, but he (or maybe she, I don’t want to give anything away, because you have no idea how useful it is, to have a mole at the IASB) filled me in on some of these rejected items, and I had to concede the point. So here they are for our collective education: a selection of previously unseen IFRS-related news items even less important than some of the ones they actually told us about:

• The IFRS Foundation is pleased to announce that Croatian accountant Lukas Kodar claims to have “read, enjoyed and absorbed” every sentence of IFRS 15, including everything in volume two.
• The Mozambique Association of Accountants has announced that it has reorganized its office library, so that the IFRS-related volumes will be on the left-hand wall, replacing the sundry periodicals, which now displace the light reading section
• IASB Chair Hans Hoogervorst today commenced writing a topical speech entitled “IFRS: your safety blanket against global terrorism,” discontinuing the project only when no plausible content for such a speech could be identified.
• The IFRS Foundation is pleased to announce that IASB member Martin Edelmann has recently added to his collection of Van Morrison albums with the purchase of Tupelo Honey, bringing the current total to twenty-two.
• The IFRS Foundation is pleased to announce that to celebrate his birthday, IASB assistant technical manager Rollson “Rollo” Delphonse today purchased cookies for everyone on his floor, which he placed on the table in the kitchen.
• Follow-up The IFRS Foundation is pleased to announce that by noon today, nothing remained of the cookies purchased by IASB assistant technical manager Rollson “Rollo” Delphonse. Asked for comment, Mr. Delphonse conceded with hindsight that despite this clear success measure, chocolate chip would likely have been a better choice.
• After an extensive search, Ecuadorian auditor Maria Crespo has succeeded in locating a shade of red lipstick that exactly matches that of the IFRS Red Book. The IFRS Foundation extends its warmest congratulations.
• The IFRS Foundation is pleased to confirm that the absence of any translations of IFRS-related materials into Sanskrit only reflects the complete absence of any identified present or future demand for such publications.
• Further defining leadership in global standards, IASB Chair Hans Hoogervorst was heard to say today: “Don’t call me Hansie, punk.”
• IFRS sucks and so does this whole f—ing job (editor’s note – this rapidly discarded release was identified as having been drafted late at night by a drunk, disgruntled member of the press team, and so presumably represents the views of only a few members of the IASB, if any)
• The IFRS Foundation regrets to announce that despite its most fervent efforts, and despite individually questioning every single staff member about their accomplishments and observations, it was today unable to generate any material for a news release. IASB Chair Hans Hoogervorst commented: “Here’s to a brighter tomorrow!”

Well, I’m sure we’ll all be hoping for such comparable restraint in 2016. Happy holidays!

The opinions expressed are solely those of the author