Thanks for replying Nicholas!

Do you know if these expresions are used by the british only or by the americans as well?

Fernando

>Right on both interpretations Fernando. Cooking the books is usually any sort of compnay fraud involving false accounting. Enron could be said to have cooked the books in a big way.
>
>Don't know about the band though
>
>>Hi,
>>
>>Last night I was watching a TV series (Inspector Morse - UK - excellent!) and at some point in a dialog came the expression: "he was burning midnight oil", that was translated (in the subtitles) to something like "working late at night".
>>
>>Later on came the expression: "cooking the books" that althougt wasn't translated I understood as manipulating the ledger of the company to false numbers.
>>
>>Is that correct?
>>
>>BTW there was (is) a band called "Midnight Oil", does their name have something to do with the first above?
>>
>>Regards,
>>
>>Fernando