Gordon's Black Wednesday
£11,169,591,442 on September 19, 2007
As these official Bank of England statements reveal, the bank's liabilities went up £11,169,591,442 on Wednesday September 19, 2007. This was Gordon's Black Wednesday.
How much will the taxpayer lose in Northern Rock? With recession coming and for the first time since the 1991 negative-equity disaster, three consecutive months of recorded falls in property prices, it is not looking good. The total level of public support is "confidential", but we can assume it is now £30 billion.
How much will the taxpayer lose in Northern Rock? With recession coming and for the first time since the 1991 negative-equity disaster, three consecutive months of recorded falls in property prices, it is not looking good. The total level of public support is "confidential", but we can assume it is now £30 billion.
click to enlargeNorthern rock has de facto already been nationalised, it now looks increasingly like that this will soon be formalised. Is it any wonder why the "economic competence" poll ratings for the Labour party have collapsed to levels not seen since before the 1992 ERM debacle. The nationalisation of Northern Rock was not in the national interest, it was in the narrow interest of Labour to protect their North East heartland votes. It is not a great bargain...
67 comments:
While it's nationalised, will it prove possible to purge the records of the Northern Rock "charity" and its links to Labour, or was that guaranteed when the Bank of England support was first arranged?
Level of public support CONFIDENTIAL? WTF, whose money is it anyway? Beyond belief what these thieving arsebandits can stuff the public with.
NR should have been closed to new business, and wound up. With an orderly transfer of assets it wouldn't have cost the country anything like the amount so-far.
The chancellor and his sith-lord are incompetant.
So why didn't the Tories oppose the bailout of Northern Rock if it was so obviously a bad decision?
Your hero David Cameron has been remarkably quiet about this issue - perhaps it is because no Prime Minister could possibly allow a High Street bank to collapse without massively damaging confidence in the entire banking sector. To avoid that fate, £30bn is a good deal.
Bhown - What you are saying is that no prime minister would do the right thing when faced with this situation.
I quite agree...except that it was the treasury/government who stopped the Bank of England sorting the Lloyds takeover which was the optimal solution.
Administration is still the best option now; it would be much cleaner than nationalisation which is effectively a huge bet. if we have a real downturn then the BoE won't be shot of NR for years and years.
bhownaggree,
Thanks for proving that leaving the Labour party with other peoples money is utter madness.
All labour party people must be mentally sub-prime.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aVVQyRlrUMLM&refer=home
The euro interbank offered rate banks charge each other for three-month loans stayed near a seven-year high, falling 1 basis point to 4.94 percent, the European Banking Federation said today. That's 94 basis points more than the European Central Bank's benchmark interest rate, close to the highest since 1999. The two- week rate soared a record 80 basis points to 4.95 percent.
``The market clearly doesn't believe central banks can do anything about this crisis,'' said Nathalie Fillet, senior interest-rate strategist at BNP Paribas SA in London. ``This is not going to be a magical solution to the problem.''
Sorry for the OT post Guido, but I think this sort of thing should be more widely known.
bhownaggree
we hear a lot about the failure of NRK triggering a banking collapse in the UK but Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds etc would beg to disagree.
There will be no banking collapse if NRK goes into administration just the failure of one bank that pursued a highly reckless business model that was doomed to fail.
As for the £30 billion it has cost to keep this lame duck afloat, that amount is increasing by around £2 billion every ten days or so and it's clear that NRK is a bottomless money pit.
Whatever way Brownites try to spin it the govts. handling of the NRK crisis has been an example of stunning and reckless incompetence by Brown and his wretched puppet Darling. What's worse, this shambles still has a lot further to go and is rapidly destroying the credibility of the govt, and the UK banking system.
2008 is going to be a desperate year for the over-indebted UK and will finish Brown for good.
BEAN Mc STALIN Leader
of THE SUB-PRIME PARTY
Anticitizenone - as mentally subprime as making a virtual atavar of oneself instead of just using a photo? (Get out more.)
It's obvious that the Tories have no alternative plan B.
Allowing a bank to go into administration is politically impossible - it's also morally repugnant. The savers who put their life savings into Northern Rock were not at fault: no democratic socialist government worth its salt would allow a bank fail destroying decent people's savings. Comments suggesting otherwise reveal the dank underbelly of the Tory party.
The omens are not good for the world economy in 2008. Confidence is falling like a stone in the world's money markets
The "credit crunch" hasn't even started to bite in the UK yet to any great effect but as those "fixed mortgages" begin to fall off for renewal those with good credit records will find that they have to pay significantly more and those with patchy or downright "bad" credit records will simply not get re-finance.
Expect re-possessions to rise during the first half and defaults to go through the roof with the return of "negative equity" with the slow down or even reduction in house prices which is already stagnating under the HIPS fiasco
Personal debt, particularly credit card debt is horrendous and personal bankruptcies are predicted to rise significantly in the first quarter.
Enjoy Xmas whilst you can. The New Year is gonna be bad bad bad !
@bowandagree: "So why didn't the Tories oppose the bailout of Northern Rock if it was so obviously a bad decision?"
Because Gorgon would have described it as "political opportunism". So they let Vince cable do all the talking. Cameron is smarter than Vince Cable and gorgon Brown added together. He is playing it like a game of chess. e knew exactly what Labour's next move would be so he avoided getting into the position which would leave him open to attack. It wasn't necessary for him to do so. Labour are finished and Cameron only has to show some statesmanship by nmot stooping toomuch to meddle in piffling matters like the oh-so-predictable "the government is wrong about NR" tribe that people like you had expected.
Kiss your money goodbye.
No-one is going to buy into and run the Rock.
Bean's handling of this debacle has been shambolic and shameful.
Don't fall for the tri-partite bollocks either, Bean controls everything, he even has a fart rosta - pass wind out of turn and you get a bollocking.
The Rock is a dud, liquidity - what a laugh.
The only REAL money in the Rock is what WE have donated.
Just one point though. Why does a company employing 6000 people need 2,000,000,000 of OUR money EVERY 10 days? Think about it - do they each earn nearly £3500 per day?
Fucking stinks nearly as bad as Gordo's snot-impregnated farts.
@bowandagree: "Allowing a bank to go into administration is politically impossible - it's also morally repugnant. The savers who put their life savings into Northern Rock were not at fault:"
The treasury both guaranteed the savers deposits AND rescued the bank from failure. Was it necessary to do both? The moral hazard was in rescuing a company that had come off the rails. Others will demand the same treatment as the economy unwinds, and the taxpayer, whois also not at fault, will foot the bill.
"The savers who put their life savings into Northern Rock were not at fault: no democratic socialist government worth its salt would allow a bank fail destroying decent people's savings"
equitable life...
Just another of the Labour parties commitment to throwing good taxpayer money after bad.
"The savers who put their life savings into Northern Rock were not at fault"
But since taxpayers are paying under your own logic you must think that it's the taxpayers that are at fault?
Those savings are guaranteed anyway, but why is the Labour party subsidising NR shareholders with taxpayers money?
Administrastion would be better for NR depositors, taxpayers and the country.
It would only be bad for shareholders (who know the risks) and Gordon Brown's Labour party.
bhownagree reappears to save the day and defend the indefensible. What fun it will be to shake him warmly by the scrotum, at drinks this evening.
anon 1:40
My point exactly.
He can not afford to be seen as "talking down the economy." He has everything to lose by doing so and everything to gain by doing exactly what he is doing.
His job in opposition is being an alternative energetic government in waiting. Not helping the country by doing Gordon Browns job for him.
Of course its VERY bad for us, not having an effective opposition to this criminal conspiracy, thats gos by the name of The New Labour Party.
Either from the official opposition or far MORE importantly the BBC.
Because it is us that gets it in the ass when the resultant shit hits the proverbial.
But "Thats Life", as Ester used to say.
Or as I say:
"A TOTAL FUCKING TOTALITARIAN BITCH and then you elect/marry one". Or NOT in Gordon Browns case.
In any battle for power its wise to do the opposite to what your opponents want and expect you to do.
Cameron MAY be as big a cunt as Heath, Wilson, Callaghan, Brown and Blair. He may turn out to be far better then Thatcher. About that I honestly have no better idea then anyone else.
But David Cameron is for sure, one of the smartest political operators I have ever witnessed leading the Conservative Party, by a long way.
If he keeps it up, he will win by a mile, and I am sure he knows it.
bhownagree reappears to save the day and defend the indefensible. What fun it will be to shake him warmly by the scrotum, at drinks this evening.
Gi' the bastad one from me kidda.
Cameron doesnt need to do anything realy, just turn up in the commons and smile at gorgon with him in charge we dont need an opposition.
They just stagger from one fuck up to the next spouting rubbish about 10yr plans, which is so funny cos they got two years till they all lose there seats at the trough.
All very well you lot moaning. I have a shedload of money in Northern Rock. I could have put it in dodgy shares, or on the horses, or blown it on expensive whores, but being a sensible person I decided to put it somewhere "safe".
IF NR had gone under there would have been blood not just on the carpet but in the streets, including one with a house numbered 10.
Welcome back Bhownaggree. Where have you bean?
Bhopwnagree and anon 3.09
Even before Darling 'guaranteed' all deposits in NR there were reasonable guarantees in place to protect the evarge depositor. The average deposit in the UK is (from memory) about £2,000.
Darlings 100% for all depositors means that even those prats who had lent all their cash to one institution were safe.
Lesson 1 for you two twerps. Do not lend all your cash to one institution.
Lesson two. Shares and investment portfolios if properly managed will give you a better return than cash with of course more risk. However the longer you hold shares the risk to you reduces.
Lesson three. NR should have been allowed to fail. Banks must be allowed to fail. The QT deal being sought with LloydsTSB by BoE was the best and most tested successful way to deal with this sort of crisis. For example Town & Country BS went bust in about 1989 and was sold to the Woolwich. D's & O's lost their jobs. Staff lost their jobs but were re-employed. No money was lost. Ditto Barings with Ing.
The reason McCunt and Dimling did the loan was to keep their votes in Tyneside, and that is the only reason.
Spending our money to buy their votes. Wankers
Been rather busy - few things going on and all that.
Few things about Northern Rock.
1. Protecting the savers and allowing the bank to go into administration are essentially one and the same.
Northern Rock's problem was it couldn't find liquidity to back up its mortgages, because of its business plan. Letting the bank slide into administration rather than providing liquidity would have cost the taxpayer the exact cost of repaying 95% of everyone's savings - many billions, whereas under the current arrangements the £30 or so billion is lent on the basis that people will pay back their mortgages.
Now, even assuming the worst US style subprime disaster, the number of default mortgages would rise to around 1 - 2% of total lending. This isn't £30bn. However, letting the bank collapse would have cost much more.
2. The £30 bn figure is money lent to support existing mortgages. The government has, in a sense, given this money to pay for the gap between mortgage lending and money saved with NR. It's current proping up people's mortgages - and fine, although we might not see the money straightaway, like any mortgage it is based on a return over 25 yrs. So it's a loan with an interest payback - like essentially a govt. investment.
3. Would people really want 4,000 jobs to go in the North East and the complete undermining of the banking sector?
I'd like to see Cameron back that. But as usual instead of policy or values we see spin.
What is Cameron's position on this - or anything economic? Where would he differ from Brown - the fact no one could set out 5 key economic differences speaks a lot about this vacuous PR man.
Sadly, I can't make tonight's shindig. Enjoy!
Any chance we could see the other side of the balance sheet. The BoE's assets would tell us more than their liabilities.
Isn't the taxpayer generous; look they're giving 125% subprime mortgages still:
http://www.northernrock.co.uk/mortgages/together.asp
"it was in the narrow interest of Labour to protect their North East heartland votes". You forget that the "Labour party is the political wing of the British people" and as such if it benefits the Labour party it benefits the British people.
Pensioner Phain can help the taxpayer by giving over his as yet undeclared donations to the Electoral Commission.
@bowandagree:
Sorry, you are quite wrong. If NR had any useful assets it would have been able to raise the necessary short-term finance on the markets in the usual manner. NR went to the BoE because no-one else trusted them to repay. So you are claiming that you know better than the global money markets - which you clearly don't.
Secondly - why should the taxpayer wait 25 years to see a return on its "investment"? Since when has investment capital required such a long pay-back period?
Thirdly, the BoE has only received "collateral" for a small proportion of the money lent.
Fourthly, NR continues to trade as a genuine company offering yet more sub-prime loans in a difficult market safe in the knowledge that it is the bank that cannot be allowed to go bust and thus the BoE has underwritten all the risk.
Fifthly - so what if 4000 jobs are lost? Aren't we in a booming jobs market created by your glorious leader where everyone in the North-East is guaranteed a job sucking on the public teat? In any case they would simply find jobs in well-run banks eager to service the mortgage needs of the citizenry.
Sixthly - everyone has already lost confidence in the banking system which is why LIBOR rates are almost 1% higher than BoE short-term rates. Even the banks don't trust banks anymore.
Now please fuck off because you are only demonstrating your continuing stupidity and encouraging my belief that only people with an IQ of 120 or more should get the vote.
It is not a great bargain...
It is for the Labour Party, though. No need to declare the taxpayers' money as electoral/party expenses.
Nice one, lads. Robert Maxwell will be saluting you from his spot on the Mount of Olives - proud of his boys.
@bhownaggree
(Northern Rock's problem was it couldn't find liquidity to back up its mortgages, because of its business plan.)
No it wasn't - the Rock ran out of ways to roll-over or borrow more money and more importantly couldn't pay back loans as they fell due = bankruptcy.
The business plan worked a treat - 60% of its PRIME mortgage assets are held in an offshore company Granite - and are as such untouchable.
The loans from the BoE have been used to settle loans as they fell due.
What is left is a SUB PRIME book valued now at just about the same ammount that we BoE have loaned the Rock.
Whelk stall economy indeed.
Been rather busy - few things going on and all that.
Have you been busy trying to find the missing disks?
I've heard from a pretty reliable source that quite a few Labour MPs have money in Northern Rock...kind of explains everything really...
anon @ 4:26 - Well the Chancellor has a Northern Rock Mortgage cue the collective 'Aww, bless' - I think not!
I've heard from a pretty reliable source that quite a few Labour MPs have money in Northern Rock...kind of explains everything really...
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
I really do have better things to do. Buy darlings....
http://business.scotsman.com/ViewArticle.aspx?articleid=3469109
Mr Darling also revealed that he had a mortgage with the troubled bank, which a month ago sparked the first run on a bank in more than 150 years.
While the Chancellor's financial relationship with the bank breaks no rules, Mr Darling had not previously revealed his mortgage to the public.
House of Commons rules require MPs to disclose the names of companies in which they have major investments, but not any loans they have taken out. But ministerial rules oblige government members to keep senior civil servants informed about their financial affairs, including mortgages.
I really do have better things to do. Buy darlings....
Like brushing up on your spelling maybe? Alternatively, would you care to tell us how much you expect to pay for said darlings, and what exactly they might be? Whitehall slang for Northern Rock shares maybe?
Ivan, Bhownaggree did indeed say "Buy darlings...."
He may choose to pay for the services of prostitutes; not everyone is reduced to those straits.
I for example have just received an unexpected response from my object of devotion, who tells me my worship from afar may soon be rewarded!
Hazel, my sweet! Will paradise on Earth soon be mine?
P.S., to the ungallant. I will kill any man who ever again likens her to a chipmunk.
bhownagree = a proper pillock
Short and to the point!
Voting limited to IQ of 120 or above?
Tempting!
Anyone can vote even illiterates can write X.
Dennis, paying for sex is infinitely better than obtaining sex under false pretences. Fair exchange is no robbery....
And if the woman looked like a chipmunk I might shag her myself. Sadly she doesn't even rate "mammalian".
Anon. 5:11, you are dicing with danger!
This is my analysis of NR. If any of you know more than I do – and I am sure many of you do – please correct me.
NR is borrowing short and lending long. It obtained loans in the money markets to provide cash to lend to new borrowers. It makes a turn on that process. When the short term loans fall due it goes to the markets to raise another loan to pay back the existing one.
Every so often it packaged up a book of loans and created a securitisation. Which I understand is a bond issue backed by the mortgage assets. And as I also understand it NR kept the administration of the book to earn fees.
So it has mortgage assets on its books and debt liabilities.
It also took deposits. These were also used to lend to borrowers and NR paid a higher rate than other deposit takers claiming that they were more efficient but really because they were taking more risk.
Now, if they cannot re-finance the short term borrowing they cannot repay the existing loans so they would be in default. And as I understand it this is what our money is for.
At the same time to preserve employment, AKA the ‘business’, they need to keep trading, i.e. creating more mortgages otherwise their business would stop trading.
So what does their balance sheet look like? On the asset side you have the mortgages. Claims on customers houses. These do have a value but no-one is prepared is to say what it is or more importantly will be in the future. However they have to be given some sort of value in order for the B o E i.e. us to lend them money.
On the liability side they have the depositors and the money market lenders.
Now the depositors are guaranteed up to 100% by Brown Darling. This guarantee will be paid for by the financial services industry as a whole, by levy’s on the banks and other institutions. So, no cost to the Treasury. For example in investment the FSCS is industry funded.
If the company goes into administration the cashflow from the existing mortgagees will still be being paid and the loans to NR will not be repaid. Yep, there will be a default. Clearly they will have to immediately stop writing new business, but so what? And a lot of the staff will lose their jobs. But again, so what? (We can discuss job loss and creation another time).
If the above analysis is correct I do not see what the problem is with closing the thing down and running it as a closed book. This is what Paragon has done in a parallel situation.
And I do not accept that this closure would cause systemic banking failure. NR is not a big bank by any means. Even if the system did look shaky the same £30Bn could be lent elsewhere on more secure terms to stop the rot.
Now, though Brown Darling has so fucked up that we are left with Nationalisation or a taxpayer funded buy out by Branson or Arnold.
I repeat the only logic I can see in this whole charade is the political one of job losses. It’s naked gerrymandering by a functionally corrupt government and party. The founders of the Labour Party must be spinning in their graves.
Didn't Kitty Ussher try and hide the extent of the 'loans' to NRK yesterday, claimed that the data was commerically confidential. Was she trying to mislead the House, or is she unable to understand the extent of the problem?
Perhaps generators have been connected to the "founders of the labour party" and they are now generating huge amounts of free electricity instead of bullshit and failed dogma that a pig could refute after a few pints.
Bhownagree
Your posts all seem to suggest the Tories are in power. They are not (you may have noticed), so your points are worthless. It was Gordo wot fucked it up, him and his pods.
Just in case you hadn't realised. You can hypothesis as much as you want,but this was a Nu Labout fuck up.
OK?
This is fighting talk, there are six other dwarves with a prior claim on Hazel's charms. I know hunchbacks can be spiteful but you has no fucking chance against six angry midgets
If Stanislav's six dwarfs are in fact Beachcomber's famous six red-bearded dwarfs, then indeed you have no chance - the hair match alone is unbeatable.
Related to the NR situation:
"What This Central Bank Plan Means, And why it doesn’t fix things."
QUOTE:
"The inter-bank money market is dry not because (as some - badly-informed - people believe) the banks do not trust each other, but because banks are unable to lend because they have limits on how large their balance sheets can be compared to their capital."
http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=63557
"If Stanislav's six dwarfs are in fact Beachcomber's famous six red-bearded dwarfs, then indeed you have no chance - the hair match alone is unbeatable."
1. They have no head for heights.
2. They are unmusical.
3. They cannot take a flogging in the cathedral close without a whimper.
4. They cannot converse in grunts.
5. They cannot overact.
I rest my case. It's irrelevant, anyway, as since my last note Hazel has visited me in person and touched me with her stardust.
I am in love.
A little something to enjoy over the weekend
Project linked to Mayor aide sued by LDA
The LDA is taking legal action against Brixton Base - of which Mr Jasper is patron and self-styled "champion" - over £18,000 in unpaid rent.
The sum is being demanded back from the south London organisation despite it receiving a £287,000 grant towards "premises" from the LDA.
The revelation is the latest development in the growing furore over cash given to groups linked to Mr Jasper. Brixton Base is one of the groups which has benefited from LDA grants. Director Errol Walters is a friend of Mr Jasper and has shared office space with him in the past.
BBC London reported that LDA auditors - sent to carry out an emergency investigation of Brixton Base in October - had found that at least £193,000 was unaccounted for. The auditors went in because for several months they had received no answers from Brixton Base to their questions about where the money went. A promised business plan, which the LDA paid for, was not delivered.
...
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23427553-details/Project+linked+to+Mayor+aide+sued+by+LDA/article.do
By God I hope these charges stick. Lee fucking Jasper and newt-shagger Livingstone represent everything that's gone wrong with this country. I would like to see the bastards swing like Saddam, photographers and all. Traitors deserve no less.
Anonymous said...
I've heard from a pretty reliable source that quite a few Labour MPs have money in Northern Rock...kind of explains everything really...
Anonymous poster and a pretty reliable source. You have the investigative nose of a Guido blogger if ever I saw one, welcome masked stranger.
mitch said..
Give it a rest Mitch, same post day after day, after day. You boring, tedious little loser. We've got the message, you don't like Gordon, you don't like Labour. You can't get a job or a girlfriend. You are stuck in your hovel waiting for the giro and so you take out your frustrations by posting drivel. Shut up, please, please shut up you're doin' me bleedin' head in.
Dennis
Would hate to see you hurt, wandering around upset like Phantom Fucker from Opera but dwarves is infamouly fickle and vicious little animals. Hazel will only use you until a better looking hunchback happens along. Not that I suppose that happens very often. Still, love is blind and, in your case, hideously malformed.
Does the local vicar let you in for Midnight Mass, or are you barred for fear that you'll frighten the ghastly little fuckers, come to Church once a year with their pissed-up parents in order to blackmail the Saviour, Himself, for a new iPhone, before knifing some poor, old granny to death on the way home, Oh, and not forget jumpimg up and down on her fucking head.
Good job Mr Balls is now in charge of horrid little bastards, eh.
robbierotton said...
you are gordon brown and i claim my £5 now fuck off you tedious wankstain.You may not have noticed that there are two of us on here Im married with a job and even a house as to the other one no idea.
just to reiterate then FUCK YOU!.
I would guess that Robbierotton is yet another nom de plume of Mike the rum loving pensioner.
Stanislav
Nothing can now take away my night of bliss! Your cynicism is misplaced, for we have been making excited plans for the future ... I am apparently to be made into something called a "quangocrat" (not sure what that means, but my angel assures me we shall never want) and will rub shoulders with the great and good, including Lord Putty the famous media person, Sir Richard Branstrom the bearded policemen, Lady Margaret Podge the tireless libertarian and campaigner for children's rights, and the exquisite Ms Suzy Heffer, chairperson of the Lesbian Insemination Board and a regular columnist on the Daily Telegrope.
Of course, even though I have been so swiftly exalted, I shall not forget my old friends, and shall report back here with tidings of my new and exciting life.
But all this is venal and irrelevant. What matters is love, the merging of two human souls with the starry infinite!
Hark! I hear my Hazel calling! I must away! Adieu ...
What is all this about Hazel Irvine?
Dennis mon ami,
Is rather extravagant use of term "human" innit, you and Hazel Blears the Zombie Dwarf; best not celebrate with foreign honeymoon, wind up in separate cage in quarantine for six month along with dog and rabbit and fucking hampster. Some places not let you in at all, has Zero Monster policy. Big sign at airport. Warning. No Monster, No Dwarf. No Scotch Cunt.
Stanislav, anyway, give up on dwarf breedings business and concentrate on plumbing. Release em all back in wild, with badger and fox and weasel, maybe keep one to go in cramped space under sink. Fucking little bastards bite and shit everywhere, put in nice warm cages in garage, feed Pedigree Chum and not appreciate. Dwarf is not ideal pet, never mind wife, Dennis. Is such savage nasty bastard is only fit for politics.Hazel Blears will break your heart. Best find one of your own kind, stick to your own kind
Robbierotton's mommy replies to Mitch..
Very sorry old chap - but robbierotton comment timed at 1:33 AM, December 15, 2007 is definately a tedious wankstain.
The REAL Robbierotton goes to bed at 9:00pm everynight - well before the watershed and has never drank co-op rum (far too common).
You're focussing on on the wrong side of the Bank of England's balance sheet.
Any emergency loans made by Bank of England to Northern Rock will appear as Assets and not as Liabilities.
CJL
Thank you mommy!
Stanislav
Were it not that you and I go back a long way, I would take grave exception to some of the terms in your last message. You cannot help being foreign; and one must assume that alcohol remains in your bloodstream from Friday night.
My beloved never eats Pedigree Chum. Only the finest will do for her, and I am not talking about Tesco's silver-packed range.
Lunch today was at the Ivy. We were guests of Mr J. Gasper, an adviser on matters tinted to Mr K. Ipresume, Lord Mayor of this fair city. Besides Mr Gasper at the table were sundry coloured gentlemen wearing much gold jewellery and expensive suits. Their manners were not entirely to my taste, nor was the disturbance when one of them, peeved by what he perceived as slow service, produced a pistol and fired three shots at the sommelier. When I made as if to protest, Hazel kicked my ankle under the table and from the side of her charming mouth hissed the magic word "racissst". Instead I asked the coloured gentlemen how things were going in their community, and they gave me affirmative replies, not all of which I think I fully understood.
You must understand that above all it is Hazel's mind that inflames me. Her logic is forensic; her knowledge encyclopaedic; her wisdom surpasseth the poor understanding of lesser mortals like us and qualifies her absolutely as a first-rate minister of the Crown. With what subtlety and care for the future does my darling wield her statecraft! O that she were more widely recognized and acclaimed! Alas, it is the fate of the self-sacrificing never to be understood and always to be cast in shade by an uncaring and ungrateful populace.
The blood coursing in my crooked veins would not be red if I did not confess the overpowering animal magnetism she exerts upon every fibre of my being. To divulge particulars of our congress would be ungentlemanly, but I cannot imagine there is a fellow in all Britain who does not envy me her charms.
Even now she protests that I linger too long at the keyboard and is calling me back to the connubial embrace. Be happy for me, Stanislav; you know how Esmeralda wounded my heart. I thought it could never mend ... but I was wrong!
Poor Dennis.
Just goes to prove there are no fools like a King of Fools. Still a shag is a shag is a shag!
My flabber though just gasted at, to divulge particulars of our congress would be ungentlemanly! I understand that OK and NOTW are preparing a humungeous cheque and that Quasi-dennis is about to do a Paul Burrell.
Watch for the headlines Blears in Tears and Humped by a Hump-Rat in the Sundays.
word var: vhugo
2008 is the year we'll be rocking round the Crock rather than the clock. Because if the Crock is either nationalised or goes under it's a dead cert it's going to take other banks with it.
60p is the trigger point for nationalisation - at that point the bottom will fall out the bank.
Dennis, I'm sure your coloured luncheon companions were merely desirous of receiving the right amount of respec', and if the sommelier had not conveyed that he may have been expected to come under fire. Fortunately for him and the rest of us, the accepted manner of discharge by coloured pistoleros burdened by gold chains and trousers round their knees, is by holding the weapon on its side. This rarely proves effiacious.
I trust your wine delivery was uninterrupted.
My best to the minging ginger midget.
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