The HBOS Three Should Be Banned
This story on the BBC’s web site, says that the Banking Standards Committee has recommended that three at the top of HBOS, should be banned from working in the City, after the failure of the bank in 2008.
I agree, as not only did they ruin HBOS, but they ruined Lloyds as well and not forgetting all of the small shareholders and businesses they damaged.
As with RBS, HBOS should have been allowed to go bust.
We’d all be in a much better state, if they had!
A Thought On The Philpott Case
The Philpott case, which is reported here, is raising a lot of debate, about the rights and wrongs of the level of benefits received.
C used to deal with some cases, where there was a vast bill for benefits on the one hand and because of the nature of the family, they cost Social Servicves a lot of time and money in keeping things in hand.
She felt, and I would agree with her, that these families are keeping benefits and services from others who need them.
So the first thing we must do is find a strategy to make sure that families like the Philpotts don’t get out of hand.
How you do that, I don’t know!
April Snows In Piccadilly Circus
I was going to Waterloo and the way I often go is to take the 38 bus to Piccadilly Circus and then get the Bakerloo line direct to the station.
But you don’t normally get snow showers in April!
Cancer Isn’t Funny!
But!
They were just talking about drugs for cancer on BBC Breakfast.
They were interviewing a guy from Wolverhampton with stomach cancer, whose specialist at the local hospital said that he should get a second opinion. So his wife searched the Internet and found that his specialist, was one of the world’s leading experts in keeping people alive with stomach cancer. According to the interviewee, she then said “What’s he doing in Wolverhampton?”
There was a lot more in a similar vein.
It was a classic interview about a serious subject, conducted with a real Midlands sense of humour.
Comet Ison
Comet Ison could be a big one. Some of the latest information from NASA is here.
I’ve set up an alert in Google, but I suspect, it’ll be like many supposed big ones of the earlier part of my life. A complete disappointment!
The best comet, I saw was in about 1969 or 1970, when C and I were returning to our house in Melbourn near Cambridge. I remember stopping the car and looking for some minutes from a lay-by on the A505. It was probably Comet Bennett, as that was the only bright one of those years.
Canary Wharf CrossRail Station
Coming home, I stopped off at West India Quay DLR station and took these pictures of the new CrossRail station at Canary Wharf.
Note Billingsgate Fish Market in the background. That was the setting for this BBC news item about a seal, who lives by the fish market.
The Odd Stories On BBC World
BBC World seems to have some stories that you don’t normally pick up, although of course the main BBC News may have covered them.
Cooking Oil Theft – It costs the Treasury a lot of money
Fortnum and Mason’s Bees – I must try some!
Death Penalty For Groundhog – He didn’t get the weather right!
David’s Golden Rules And Cyprus
I’ve mentioned my late friend and bank manager, David’s rules before, so how would they apply to the Cyprus bail-out and the problems it has created.
Things have changed since he died six years ago, but the two principles he gave me still apply.
If you a UK citizen or resident, he would never have advised anybody to use a bank that was head-quartered outside of the UK, as you don’t know what external factors will apply in that country.
The second principle, was never to bank with a small bank, that has the possibility of being taken over by a man with a large ego for his own purposes. He said this, when I got an offer from Bank of Scotland, in probably the 1990s. I know that they didn’t have the Fred the Shred problem, but he felt that given the changes that would happen in banking, it might be something I would regret.
Incidentally, he was not against smaller building societies and credit unions, and once told me that he believed the latter would be strong in the future. He was wrong on that, but I think he underestimated the conservatism of the average bank account customer, who are reluctant to change banks.
So if we look at the last few years, his rules would have ruled out banking with the Icelandics, RBS and probably Bank of Scotland too!
I didn’t bank with any of them!
So what would he have thought about Cyprus. He would probably have had a very juicy tale about one of the Cypriot Banks ans of course they do break both golden rules, in that they aren’t in the UK and are two small. They may be OK, if you need a local bank account, but these days, with electronic transfers, you could probably manage it all through the Internet. I don’t know for sure, as I’ve only ever been to Cyprus as a tourist for enjoyment. Nothing in the world, would encourage me to live outside of the UK anyway!
But making account holders in Cyprus take a haircut is something, that will happen elsewhere in the eurozone, as the precedent has now been set.
In fact, if I was George Osborne, I might be having a quiet chuckle, as the Cyprus haircut, might be one of the better things that happen to the UK financially this year. Will those, EU citizens with a dodgy banking system in their country, look even more seriously at the UK as a more benign place to live?
I think too, we’ll see more innovative financial products coming out of the City of London, designed to appeal to those with money in other parts of the European Union. If you’re very rich, these products already exist, but will we see products for say the German engineer or doctor of comfortable means, who wants his money safe, to work for him and give him a comfortable retirement.
Some People Will Nick Anything
I saw the Big Egg Hunt in London last year at Canary Wharf, but I can’t find the post. According to this report, one of the eggs has been stolen in Glasgow. Two actually went missing in London, but were returned.
Some people would think, that as the eggs went to Liverpool, that stereotypes would say that some would have gone missing there. But they didn’t! On the other hand, Liverpool has lots of street sculpture and the Superlambananas.
If You Want Good Publicity, Black Death Is A Surprisingly Good Idea
I have a Google News alert for Crossrail and today, it flagged up nine stories on the web.
Eight of these were about the story I reported on yesterday, about the finding of a cemetery for plague victims.
Usually, companies try to disassociate themselves from death and other dark stories.
If you’re wondering the other story, was about Crossrail driving up residential property prices. But then rising property prices are a good news story in many peoples’ minds.
The Anonymous Widower 