Typically, they take in all the money and write all the cheques, including one to the owner, if there is anything left after paying for all hotel operating costs, the management fee, and sometimes the salaries of the staff in the manager's own regional headquarters.

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When you are trying to make it, it isn't all big pay-cheques and glamour, so every little bit helps.

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The men underperform but still keep their massive pay cheques, the women's side has all its financial support stopped.

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The programme also contacted a number of other banks including HSBC, HBOS, Barclays and Nationwide who all confirmed that they do not accept post-dated cheques.

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When these cheques are paid in, the drawers have forgotten all about them, or claim to have done so.

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And while administration officials have not exactly lied about their fundraising zeal, there has been much shuffling of feet, returning of cheques and promising not to do it again, all richly suggestive of guilty behaviour.

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Some 370, 867 policyholders had received cheques by the end of January, and payments to all the individuals who could be traced were on track to be completed by April as planned, Economic Secretary to the Treasury Sajid Javid said.

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No wonder the card firms' new mantra is that their biggest competitors are not each other but cash and cheques, which still account for four out of five of all transactions.

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