Job vacancy No.197: Religious Leader – Men Only

All of a sudden my wife considers herself to be a seasoned blogger. I gather that her post on Saturday achieved double my average 'hit rate'. As a result she has now concluded that she might have found her new ‘calling’.

I cannot begin to describe the fuss she made on Saturday morning when I begged her to stand in for me. I was a little indisposed after a reunion dinner at my old Cambridge College. And I genuinely thought it might entertain Lady Ivana to do something other than tend her flowers for once. She grudgingly accepted and rattled off an article that in no way adequately addressed the concerns that I’d hoped to raise about ‘broken Britain’. She practically exonerated the wretched Messrs. Cowell and Hirst for their degenerate output and fell back on that old chestnut of ‘human nature’.

Anyway, I thought that this was the end of it. But no, come this morning, she wanted to do another post. I probed her sudden enthusiasm for blogging, and she told me that it was to do with the revelation in the Sunday newspapers of the identity of some strumpet who goes by the name of ‘Belle du Jour’. Lady Trencherman has decided that this might be a good time to start blogging about her own past, and she would like to focus primarily on the years that she spent in Hollywood, California. She thinks that she might capitalize on this Belle girl’s publicity and use the blog to depict some of the matinee idols and film producers with whom she became intimate during her years there. Quite what this has got to do with anything at all in the world of blogging, I am really rather uncertain. It is all terribly, terribly perplexing as I had no idea whatsoever that she’d hung out with ‘film people’, or that she had anything remotely interesting to reveal about her past.

Anyway, in the end I put my foot down and told her that I had plans of my own today. Her revelations would have to wait. I had far weightier issues to consider.

You see, there is a question that I have wanted to pose for quite some time - and one that few people appear terribly bothered about right now. That is: Why is it that religious organizations – be they Catholic, CofE, Jewish or Muslim - in this egalitarian nation of ours are exempt from the 1975 sex discrimination act? Why, after all these years, after all the debates about sexual discrimination over the past decades, are they still allowed to bar women from becoming religious leaders: priests, pastors, ministers, rabbis… or God forbid, Bishops?

I will not dwell on this point for too long as I am told by the people who run this website that nothing is more likely to turn readers off than a post on religion and religious practice. But I will ask this: Why is it, when the Church of England has voluntarily walked away from this exemption is it deemed appropriate for other religious groups to carry on this discrimination?

And equally important, given that we have a Labour government that includes supposed egalitarian firebrands such as the delightful and fragrant Harriet Harperson, why are not more women MPs up in arms, literally shouting from the rooftops of Westminster about this last bastion of discriminatory practices? Why isn’t this great, progressive Labour party of ours currently considering legislation to ensure that everyone, man and woman, has access to every available job in any given organization, commercial, public sector, charity or faith orientated?

My wife, Lady Ivana, who claims to be the grand-daughter of a suffragette no less, may wish to carry on about her baffling experiences in LA-LA land or whatever it is she calls it. But I feel that it is incumbent upon me to consider the questions that are of real import to women here and anywhere else where hypocrisy and humbug do prevail. I hope that this will spark some debate. And if the owners of this blog site truly find that their ‘site stats’ have gone down as a result of my very brief and not irrelevant question, then I do indeed apologize. Maybe they can then ask Lady Ivana to return to the helm in order to get ‘em up again. (The site stats, that is.)
By guest blogger Lord Trencherman of Furmity

Her Ladyship is standing in...

My errant husband, Reggie, tells me that he will not be posting today. He attended a dinner at his old college last night and ended up with friends at their house near the village of Madingley. They offered to put him up for the night, but he was having none of it. He demanded a cab explaining that he had a blog to do - or so I am told. Then he swiped a bottle of Grahams 63 port from a cabinet and managed to polish it off in the back of the taxi whilst sporadically poking his head through the window and shouting at passers by, "Have any of you lot seen my blog?" The frazzled cabbie set him down outside at half past four in the morning and demanded a hundred pounds, plus tip, which yours truly had to pay.

Apart from the fact that I no longer find such behaviour attractive in a gentleman of Reggie's years, I fail to see what this obsession with 'blogging' is nowadays. I am only writing this 'post' because he begged me at five o' clock in the morning not to 'let the side down'. However, I can honestly say that it is the first and last time that I will engage in this activity. And I really rather wish that he had stayed put in Madingley - I could quite easily have fulfilled his request without all the early morning jiggery pokery. But then I suppose, boys will be boys.

I took a peek at some of Reggie's notes earlier this morning to see whether I could 'stick to the spirit of the blogeology' (another one of his sozzled requests). But from what I can tell, he was determined simply to write another one of his articles slating 'this shallow and pointless nation of ours' - which he refers to as 'Fool Britannia'. It seems that his post was going to focus on what he terms the 'twin nematodes' of British Arts and Media - Simon Cowell and Damien Hirst. He claims that no parasites have done more to lower the tone in Britain circa C20 than these two.

Whilst, I am bound to agree with the sentiment, were I writing this article myself I should want to go a step further and consider why these chaps have been so successful. Their work has undeniably gripped the nation. Simon C has everyone glued to their seats, whilst Damien H has 'art-lovers' glued to his perpex. I know that one could claim that these two impressarios are engaged in nothing more than a cynical branding exercise. But then again, what branding!

So my view of it all? Well, as the old saying goes, twenty million dung-loving insects cannot all be wrong... Where there's a swarm, there must be form... Flies always know the 'coolest places to hang out'... I could go on. But I won't, for fear of boring Reggie's regular readers. (Does he have regular readers...? Any readers?)

But anyway, the point is this: These 'ghastly parvenus' as Reggie labels them, have identified how to part stupid people from their cash. And let's face it, if that means plumbing the depths of human nature, if that means 'dumbing down' then all you can say is: Where there's muck, there's brass! Cheesy fellows like Simon Foul and Damien Cursed are definitely on to something.

There's another well known saying that people use to define shallow, soulless showmen like Mr Cowell and Mr Hirst...They are laughing all the way to the bank! That is something that one most definitely cannot deny. They have cleaned up (metaphorically speaking.) Although of course whenever I repeat this 'laughing all the way' saying to Reggie, he always responds: And they are crying all the way to the banks of Hades, my love! (One of his Classical allusions, I suspect.)

Anyway, back to my usual Saturday morning chores: Cultivating the female flowering heads on the cannabis plants! Her Ladyship's work is never done... When he was in his cups earlier, Reggie mentioned something about Boris Johnson coming to dinner this evening. I think that this is rather unlikely. The poor fellow is far too busy nowadays managing London. But who knows? Reggie is always springing such surprises on me.
By guest blogger Lady Trencherman

Consider the hippies...

Free what?
It is not unknown for a peer of the realm to curse and blaspheme. Indeed my own recent use of expletives has not gone unnoticed, I see. Some wags and scamps have attempted to link this with the shortcomings of my physician, who in actual fact has never once hesitated to renew my prescriptions for diazepam and vicodin, whilst turning a blind eye to my predilection for poppy pod tea. So nothing could be further from the truth when it comes to my cussing. The reality is that there are certain things that even a former Cambridge Classics Don like me can only express in words of one syllable (or four letters – whichever shorter). And chief amongst these is profound disbelief. So, it should come as no surprise to readers when I pose the question, “The free market? What the fuck?”

It is not my intention here to question belief in the free market, rather belief that there is a free market… or that there ever could or will be such a thing. It seems almost laughable when one beholds the developed world to make this claim. The lion’s share of global business is conducted by a relatively small number of corporations.

These ‘multinationals’, so to speak, have been around for rather a long time, but in recent years have achieved supremacy with the latest installment of 'globalization'. They may offer society a net gain, or they might ultimately only benefit the few – i.e. wealthy businessmen and the revolving-door class of politician. That is not what I am asking here though. The real question is this: can you ever have a truly free market when these behemoths dominate the industrialized world? And can you ever have a free market when the barriers to entry for newcomers – global or otherwise - are absurdly high?

Clearly not, I would argue. For what would a free market – for better or for worse - really mean? For a start it would probably mean not destroying the opium crops of foreign farmers, it would mean allowing them to engage in whatever enterprise they wished. This is not to argue in favour of the opium trade. It is simply to say that Western governments will only ever allow a free market, free trade when it correlates with their own political and economic self interest(s).

This drugs example is obviously at the extreme end of the debate – and involves a subject close to my heart! But a truly global free market would also mean a sea change for many much loved industries and a spot of downsizing for their glorious chiefs and proprietors. Amongst them: Multinational news corporations, major computer and software providers, food manufacturers, pharmaceuticals concerns, operators of utilities, leading retailers (to name but a few). For you and me, and anyone with an ounce of entrepreneurial spirit, access to these industries right now is rather like access to the law and private education – open to everybody.

Yes, yes, yes. The World Wide Web has presented and continues to present lower barriers to entry. Many new entrants have indeed achieved success in cyberspace. But, as with all new territories, we are already seeing a consolidation of the major players. The guys from Google came from nowhere, we all know. But how free is the market in search engines nowadays? And it is not just ‘optimisation’ that the firm dominates any more. Youtube, anyone?

Furthermore many of the ‘old economy’ corporations are starting to clean up, as it is a darned sight easier to storm a new territory with resources, with a well stocked army already behind you. For a start look at who dominates the news agenda nowadays. Don’t want to mention names but… er hem… Beeb… Guardian… etc etc... Who knows? Maybe this humble blogsite will one day be a behemoth. Ho ho.

Anyway as you readers will have gathered from the outset, this post is really nothing more than an excuse to use more expletives. And so I will conclude it by saying this: When people ask me whether I believe in the free market I always respond by saying, “Free market? What the fuck's that then?”
(Is that profane enough for you, Ned?)
By guest blogger Lord Trencherman of Furmity

... able face of capitalism...

Now, let’s be honest. What do we really think of capitalism?
Perhaps that is an unfair question, because it sounds as though the response should be either ‘love it’ or hate it’. And of course it is not that simple.

The thing is: can you view capitalism as a single entity that you support or oppose, that you take or leave? Is it a philosophy? Is it a faith? Is it a system, a way of life? (Is it a bird, is it a plane?) Or is it simply a catch-all phrase that covers a multitude of sins, of activities, of practices? This is a relevant question in an age like ours, in an age that has tested to the limits our ‘faith’ in ‘the system’.

We believe in enterprise. We know that the flow of capital facilitates the efficient functioning of our society. We believe that competition is good, in that it by and large ensures low prices. So in that respect at least, we could call ourselves capitalists.

But the other side of believing in capitalism, or any system at all for that matter, is having faith in those who claim to be its stewards, its custodians. And that is where the problem lies right now. We’ve bugger-all trust in said custodians.

2008 and 2009 were the years in which our trust in business and businessmen reached an all time low. It wasn’t just the reckless bankers and the shady mortgage brokers. It was insurance companies (ruthlessly avoiding payouts) energy companies (high prices), telecoms (slow broadband, poor customer relations), national rail (poor service, overpriced), television companies (faking phone polls and competitions.)

And those other supposed custodians – the ministers of state – were nowhere to be seen. Or at least they only ever appeared to act when scandals were highlighted in the media, and they realized that they better move or else lose the support of the beloved voter. But even then their response was somewhat muted. There were a lot of bold initiatives. But the lobbyists soon went into overdrive and made ministers aware that if they generated too much regulation, they would turn Britain into an economic wilderness. And anyway, how could these ministers really act ingenuously when they had their own dodgy dealings (expenses) to handle?

So, people are indeed trying to get on with their lives, through thick and thin, amid whatever the recession might throw at them. They have little choice but to continue relying upon the system that is still just managing to keep them fed and clothed and housed. But when one is asked whether the custodians - after all that has passed, after all that has been said and done - have done enough to restore people’s faith in that very system that they are supposed to safeguard, one can but reply, in the most humble, restrained and modest terms possible: “Have they fuck?”
By guest blogger Lord Trencherman of Furmity

Idea Porn

Question: When do ideas become shallow and worthless? Answer: When they become fashionable.

It has been brought to my attention that the ‘chattering classes’ are developing a penchant for non-fiction, devouring ghastly little books that analyse modern cultural trends. It appears that a number of self-styled ‘public intellectuals’ have been doing very nicely producing books on everything from understanding children through to deciphering politicians (same thing no doubt.) Apparently the aspirational middle classes, desperate not to appear lacking in the erudition stakes, are lapping it up.

Self help manuals – which is essentially what these wretched books are – have previously been the preserve of the poorly educated and the socially insecure. Works like How to Influence People have sold in their millions to ambitious working folk who believed that a pot of gold awaited them at the end of the final chapter. But the sad thing about the latest crop of manuals is that they appeal to a supposedly better educated class of citizen, the ones who went to decent Universities. So what exactly has brought this about?

Well, one thing that became apparent during the Thatcher / Blair decades was that conspicuous consumption not only infected the vulgar nouveau riches, but also spread to those that had spent three years in higher education, studying subjects normally considered pretty highbrow. I, for one have been to countless dinner parties where to a man (and woman) the guests have been Oxbridge educated – with perhaps the occasional red-brick gooseberry. And yet for most of the evening these couples have banged on about their five star holidays or their dinners at the Ivy or rising house prices, as though there were nothing else to life.

I have often wondered what people get out of University, Oxbridge included. But when you discover that some of the most vacuous public figures attended the most revered institutions - including a raft of bland, blond newsreaders and witless television personalities – you realize that for many they are simply a stepping stone to ‘the most enviable jobs in society.’

Problem is that a lot of these BA Hons. lightweights are now facing intellectual mid-life crisis. It is dawning on them that the viewing public doesn’t consider them any wiser than the stars of X-factor or Come Dancing. Similarly, my old dinner party set look back on what they have achieved and discover that there is little more than material wealth – houses, cars, designer clothing.

They all know that they cannot return to college, so they have decided that a crash course in some fashionable, pseudo-intellectual topic is just the ticket. They can cherry pick ideas from easy-to-read paperbacks and regurgitate them in front of their peers (who are doing the same thing). Then they can hold their heads up high, and no doubt sleep nights, confident that their formative years at college weren’t all pissed down the drain in the pursuit of shallow materialism and keeping up with the X-factor generation.
By guest blogger Lord Trencherman of Furmity

Here today, gone tomorrow revolution

When you reach my age, the nearest and dearest occasionally find it entertaining to discuss Alzheimer’s in front of you. Of course we all know that alongside mad professors and eccentric aristocrats, the people most associated with battiness are the old and the ageing. Now I will admit that I have been known to leave the odd ham and cheese roll in the sock drawer, and have bored the grandchildren to tears by endlessly reminding them how Great Aunt Milly used to make opium tea. (One would have thought they’d be grateful.) But I rather feel that such events are small beer beside the collective Alzheimer’s one finds amongst the young, the relatively young, and even the middle aged nowadays.

What a year it has been, what a memorable year. In the space of roughly twelve months ordinary folk have learnt an awful lot about money and wealth generation and greed; about the haves and the have-nots, about the users and the used. A number of ne’er-do-wells spewed forth during the meltdown – they always do - and we saw businessmen and ‘role models’ and elected representatives cast in a new light.

Remember how taxpayers felt when the bankers who’d been coining it for years required a bailout? In the old days we might have seen ruined investors standing on window ledges and humbled bankrupts pleading ‘buddy can you spare a dime?’ Now it was ‘Stand and deliver. Give us everything you’ve got, or else the economy gets it.” Being understanding folk, the British people responded: “Of course, if it’s an offer that our beloved Prime Minister cannot refuse, then grudgingly, here, take everything.”

Soon after this, people learnt that the beloved Prime Minister and his ilk in the Houses of Parliament had also been taking everything and had been doing so for quite some time thank you very much. During the ‘boom years’ many MPs had evidently decided, ‘We’ll have some of that.’ Some of them, it emerged, were earning more money from their flipped homes than many ordinary folk do from their salaries.

Remember the resentment that was felt towards these greedy fellows – the politicians, the bankers, the businessmen – who, whilst feigning stewardship of the economy, had actually been cynically plundering it? Remember the sense that this could not be allowed to happen again? That the reprobates must go?

Well that was a long time ago (albeit only a year). Bankers are trading exactly as they were before the meltdown – and coining it - and the politicians are looking for new ways to water down expenses reform. So why are people not up in arms anymore?

Of course at the beginning of this article I referred casually to collective amnesia (or Alzheimer's to be precise). But I do realize that people still have access to newspapers and television, however bad their memories might be. The information is all there, laid out, day by day in the media. It is not subject to totalitarian blackout. The truth, let’s face it, is still accessible. So you will no doubt ask, what is it exactly that people have forgotten?

It appears that the people have forgotten how to feel, how to behave, how to react, that’s what. They live in a world of fleeting experience, of passing sensation, of instant gratification. Nothing lasts, nothing matters for long. Consumer goods, their possessions are obsolescent at point of purchase, and, as for what they find on the internet? Well, nothing could be more ephemeral.

And such is their mindset, when they contemplate the nefarious deeds committed in trading houses, or mortgage brokers, or the Mother of all Parliaments. The information will always be there at their fingertips, ready to access, ready to digest, ready to outrage. But it will always be – and will always feel – rather like all the other information that overloads their weary, strung out little brains: electronic, ephemeral, fleeting… hard to fathom, impossible to care about... at least for longer than it takes to re-boot your Dell computer... Bit like blogging really
By guest blogger Lord Trencherman of Furmity

Farewell to the vacuous noughties!

At long last! An end to the absurd illusion of meritocracy. What a wretched couple of decades it has been under these ghastly career politicians and their embrace of popular culture. Did anyone believe that you could achieve equality by snipping off the old school tie, by filling The Commons benches and the bourgeois haunts of the arts and the media with women and the lower orders? Did they really think that they could find equality with Big Brother… the X factor? Jonathan Ross?

Sadly, that is exactly what they believed, it seems. During the early nineties, when the ‘people’s party’ was rooting around for new ways to captivate folk, as the Tories had done in the eighties with share ownership, they found inspiration in celebrity culture. Here was an arena where you didn’t have to be aristocratic to stand a chance of being rich, famous and admired. In fact you could come from anywhere and have little education… or talent. What could be more egalitarian than that? What could be more meritocratic, more aspirational? Soon, all we heard was People’s this and People’s that.

Shame nobody told the proponents of meritocracy that the children of meritocrats are effectively aristocrats, born with silver spoons in their mouths, despite having even less talent than their X-Factor parents. Of course, these young ‘aristocrats’ go one further, bearing horrid names like Peaches and Brooklyn. You see, meritocracy really is a one dimensional concept. All that really happened under Labour was a farewell to the old old order and the embrace of a new old order. Except that where the previous bunch had grace and style and, quite often, erudition, this new celebrity lot have shown themselves to be vacuous and vulgar and really rather witless.

However it now looks as though the middle classes, the chattering classes, are vehemently rejecting the ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ class of politician. Of course we all know that nobody trusts MPs nowadays. But they particularly don’t trust those who want celebrity stardust to rub off on them. They cringe when they see the likes of our tedious little PM hanging out with pop singers and the stars of reality TV, pretending to be a man of the people.

So it looks increasingly like Old Etonians will be making a bit of a comeback at the next election, courtesy of David Cameron. If the Conservatives have their way, the government benches will be rather more Macmillan than Thatcher, come 2010. It leaves one wondering where the next bunch of Labour strategists and spin doctors will find their future role models. Maybe YouTube or Twitter... or, wherever they expect 'the people' to be hanging out a decade from now.
By guest blogger Lord Trencherman of Furmity

The Old Orders

Lord Trencherman, whose banking career was forged pre Big Bang, will be guest blogging this weekend. He will consider how disillusion with career politics and politicians has brought about the re-emergence of the old orders. Will old values follow?

10:10 Vision

I recently learnt that a couple of the spods who’d been developing financial forecasts at FTP Bank - the rocket scientists, so to speak - had gone over to the ‘dark side’. Driven by their 'consciences' (no less) they’d decided to channel the mathematical expertise once tailored to predicting market movements into the building of climate change models.

Presumably they intend to exploit the very mathematical methods that didn't foresee impending market catastrophe to prove that another catastrophe - an environmental one - is in fact inevitable. Does that make sense?

Now, I know that it’s not the done thing to question climate change. Like Islam, it is the one area that we lovers of free speech approach with trepidation. I’m by no means faint hearted. I’m a Cambridge boxing blue. But in a room full of tree huggers, even I might be reluctant to question these climate dogmas. Eco-folk throw bottles and custard pies and launch verbal abuse at anyone who is less than convinced that the world is eco-buggered.

But I have to ask: Why does the bourgeoisie reject the bad old computer models used in market trading, claiming them to be esoteric and misleading, but readily accept those of climate science, though they are no less impenetrable?

Of course the Monbiots of this world claim that climate change ‘deniers’ have room temperature IQs. So what are we to make of the likes of Heather Mills, or Gwen Stefani or Cindy Crawford who are eco-fanatics? Perhaps these celebs have hidden genius; perhaps they knock out bucket loads of statistical models before breakfast… on their computers. Maybe they spend their free time discussing quantum mechanics and astro-physics. (Of course, such is their respect for the big names of science that they maintain their copies of ‘Brief History of Time’ in mint condition!).

The fact is that many simple folk, celebs included, accept science as unquestioningly as worshipers do religion. Quote a bundle of incomprehensible stats, bombard people with equations and they will stare at them with fascination, scratch their chins and say, “Ooh… really, that’s amazing. I had no idea.” (They still don't.)

Indeed science, like faith, is rather a useful marketing tool. Put it another way, where there’s science there’s brass. Those rocket scientists that left FTP to join the green movement did so I suspect because they really thought: that’s where the money is right now. Of course with the financial markets turning round, these spods might well return to the ‘golden goose’. We’ll see.

It all rather leaves me wondering whether the scientists that juggle such numbers have any more insight into 'saving the planet' than the vacuous little brand consultants that produced that inane 10:10 logo… Another attempt, it appears, to whip up unbending support for some shallow new green initiative that the public does not understand and that a bunch of politicians cynically rally behind to show they care. 10:10? Always makes me think of Herge’s boy reporter.

Nothing to fear from the Shallow Chancellor

I don't understand why the chaps in the city get hot and bothered about young Osborne. I know that he keeps making noises about curbing bonuses and bringing bankers to book. But I seem to remember a young MP called Gordon Brown railing against greed in the city back in the early nineties. And look at him now.

You see, no one really cares for these 'golden geese' - unless they happen to own one. And when they own one, they do not understand how selfish it is to let goosey feed on common land, whilst keeping all the gold themselves.

And so it is with investment banking. The opposition accuses the government of failing to regulate the bankers, and promises that they will not repeat the error. Then once in office, surprise surprise, they conveniently forget the promise and become buddy buddy with the 'big swinging dicks'.

We must not choke off the entrepreneurial spirit of the bankers, they now stress. We must not burden them with red tape, tax their hard earned bonuses into oblivion as did Wilson and Healey in the seventies. Do we want to cause a brain drain? Do we want our most successful operators to flee to that little place where they eat fondue and yodel day and night? No, we, the public, must make them feel welcome and show gratitude for their much needed 'trickle down' (horrible phrase - sounds like they're pissing all over us.)

Of course, what the government is really saying is, "We want some of your lovely lolly... They're saying: FTP Bank? Third quarter profits of three billion? We'll have some of that. They’re saying: Trillions of dollars flowing through London each year? Yes please. Two million pound donation to the Tory / Labour / Liberal party... er, maybe it is unwise to stray into the area of party donations right now. As a prospective Conservative candidate, I don't want to unsettle our generous sponsors.

Anyway, I digress. The point is, once you are in government the rules of the game change. You suddenly have to make ‘tough decisions’. You have to think about revenue, cashflows, growth, employment. What fool could honestly wish to alienate our blessed wealth generators?

No, my chums in Moorgate can sleep tight, I'd say. Old Harrovian Boy George might be labeled an oik by his Etonian front bench colleagues. But when it comes to the city of London, he won't look a gift horse in the mouth. Governments, all governments are humbled by the flows of capital, and always will be. There's no escaping that.

The best way to react to George's grumbles is to hold tight and accept that once the boy's in No.11, reality, pragmatism, will rule. And at this point he will do whatever he can to encourage a new age of exuberance, to stimulate a new period of growth, of prosperity, of speculation, of accumulation, of... anyway, you get the idea.

If an old Presbyterian socialist like Gordon Brown can beat a path to mammon, then how hard can it be for ingenious George?
Posted by guest blogger Burgoyne

Once more unto the breech...

Last night I bumped into a chap who used to work at FTP. I was staggering, slightly blotto I admit, out of Julie's Wine Bar in Holland Park when I spotted a cheesy Oriental grin that I'd seen somewhere before. I realised that it was the Chinese fellow who'd headed our analytics unit. He was what they call a 'rocket scientist'. His team built weird and wonderful computer models that predicted where the market might 'boldly go' and that gave us some insight into how we might fleece the competition.

After these computer models proved themselves to be positively 'toxic' and after the market collapsed, he soon pissed off back to China and began working for one of the state banks. Maybe he felt a little guilty about the part he'd played in the meltdown... or then again, maybe not. I don't know, perhaps he'd decided that the rich pickings had gone for good and there was no point sticking around.

Anyway, this fellow was trying to woo a pretty Eurasian lady whom, it transpired, he had abandoned when he'd buggered off back to Peking or Beijing, or whatever they call it nowadays. She was heavily pregnant, one could clearly see. Was it the Chinaman's baby, I wondered? Anyway, I offered to buy them both espresso Martinis (she hesitated naturally) and began picking his brains.

Now... he soon confessed that he was trying to get back into the European financial markets. His departure had been premature, he'd decided. And he had realised that people (in the banking world at least) were no longer blaming rocket scientists and their funky derivatives models. He'd actually heard from a friend still working at FTP that the banks were hiring like crazy, and that this hiring included the 'rocket scientists'.

I offered to put him in touch with my old chums in the city and you should have seen the look on his face. All of a sudden he got down on his hands and knees and confirmed that his charming companion was indeed carrying his baby and that the little fellow was expected to sally forth any day now. He was desperate to do the right thing by her. He was terrified that he couldn't support her unless he returned to the land of plenty.

Of course I reminded him that the UK (in general) was not the land of plenty it once was. I added though that the bankers were coining it again thank you very much. And if he played his cards right he might be able to secure a post offering a modest bonus guarantee. He might even scoop up a cut price property in a decent school catchment area that would allow him one day to provide his little blighter with a half reasonable education.

"You mean state school?" he asked.
"Yes" I replied. "Since the market collapsed last year, these catchment areas have become much more affordable. Good time to buy, while the middle classes are tightening their belts."
"No. I do not want to buy advantage like all these middle classes do, sir. I just want to send boy to private school just like honorable investment bankers."

"I like that," I replied, somewhat confused by his logic. "A man who has no prejudices, no resentment, no envy... who doesn't want more than his fair share... who will work, work, work for what he wants and needs in life... who just wants what is best for his children."

"Thank you, sir," he replied and he bowed and scraped for a while longer.

"By the way," I asked. "How do you know that it's a boy? The baby, I mean."

I don't actually remember whether the fellow gave me a convincing answer to this question. He gave me some spiel about lucky numbers. But I'd had enough of this chit-chat by then, and decided to cab it home. Funny people the Chinese.
By guest blogger, Burgoyne.

Into the valley...

I know that I have not ‘blogged’ for a couple of days, as I promised I would. But when a chap leads as hectic a social life as I, it’s irksome having to sneak away to rattle off a post. Also it might not be appropriate to blog on my exploits this weekend. It might appear a trifle rude if I revealed that I have something going with the Baroness who invited me to dinner on Saturday night, or that her husband – the CEO of a certain multi national media corporation - knows nothing of our affair. It might be amusing, but it is nevertheless inappropriate to divulge that, as a non-exec director of his company, I'll be sitting very close to him at a board meeting later this week.
Oh, no. I told the fellows that run this site that I wasn't going to blab about my private life, however fascinating it might be. Instead I’d like to give you the benefit of my wisdom, my broad knowledge of the finance and investment industry and my take on the bozos who currently pack the Commons benches. And on that very point, I recently picked up an interesting insight into what is currently happening in the banking world. It says a lot about this government’s approach to the investment banking community. It is clear that despite the public outcry about bonuses, Messrs Brown and Darling are effectively turning a blind eye to what is actually happening on the trading desks.
You see, the other day I was chatting to a fellow who used to run the credit derivatives desk at FTP. The bank wasn’t as heavily involved in dodgy asset-backed securities as some of the players, but nevertheless had to 'hold out its begging bowl' at the time of the meltdown. This fellow, we’ll call him ‘Henry’ for now, recently moved to one of the big US institutions that are coining it all of a sudden.
Henry says that these big players are not just creaming it by trading the bonds that the government has been issuing to revive the economy. They have even returned to dabbling in the credit products we have all grown to know and love.
What is happening, unbeknownst to Joe Public, is that these clever bankers are developing brand new structured credit products on their derivatives desks – and appear to be making a mint out of them. But even more amusing, they are now actually wheeler-dealing the very distressed asset backed securities that were the root cause of the catastrophe in the first place. Apparently they can do this because they have ring fenced the dodgy stuff - they call it ‘legacy trades’ - and have reported them as losses. But they are still allowed to knock those same products out to punters at bargain basement prices – say at ten pence in the pound. They trade these products freely, as though the events of a year ago never happened. They call it ‘learning to move on’.
Brown and Darling clearly know that this is happening – or else they are as ignorant as they were a couple of years back. But they have decided that it is wise to turn a blind eye. After all, new tax revenue will flood in to the Treasury on any profits made. Plus ‘economic activity’ will appear to be returning (to London at least).
Sometimes I wonder whether I should return to the old square mile and make a few more bucks whilst the sun still shines. But then I recall my vow: Time to give something back to the community. Yes indeed, it is time to do my old mates a good turn by entering Parliament, God-willing by entering government. Because in years to come it will be my turn to do what Brown and Darling are doing right now: To encourage once more the exuberance of the trading desks of London; to restore unquestioning public faith in the markets; reignite the ‘get rich quick’ mindset of the British people; turn a blind eye to anything that ultimately wins votes; focus on jam, jam, jam today.
I feel that this is my calling: To lead my people as the General leads his troops. For it is the role of the politician, indeed the role of the General, whether times are good or times are bad, to summon those troops out of the trenches, to exhort them to sally forth, and to pursue those glorious spoils that await them up ahead.
By guest blogger Burgoyne