bank crisis

Simple but solvent
I have to declare an interest here my family own Lloyds/TSB and Santander shares. Not a lot of them, about £2000 worth all together, so please don't feel sorry for us as they have fallen in value. It now seems that along with the rest of the UK we now have more bank shares following the government's decision, on behalf of the nation, to bail out people like us. How confusing, we are both the problem and the solution at one and the same time. How apt that the Lloyds shares, like the TSB ones, came as a form of bonus as I recall simply due to the luck of having an account with each bank, or something like that, it was many years ago. Suddenly we moved from customer to shareholder, what a privilege, honour and responsibility. Then years later the Santander shares were inherited from a relative who had started saving with the National Building Society. In time, for that's how these things go, The National moved in with the Abbey Building Society, or it could have been the other way around, again it was a long time ago. Whatever, the product of this union was so good that the nice folk at Santander got to hear about it and just could not resist buying it lock-stock and barrel. Well if made them happy in their quest to become a High Street bank in a foreign land why not? And thank you for the shares, they can go with the others.

Lake Wobegon
In 'Lake Wobegon Days' the author Garrison Keillor always began an observation with: "it's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon". Well it was a quiet week beginning 8th September 2008, very quiet, in fact we didn't notice a thing. I refer to the great non-news story of that week when the cabinet meeting was held right here in Birmingham and, for the first time in, well ages, so they say. Just what was the point of this, why did they do that? Personally it was a quiet day and I was working in the garden but I'm sure, in the fullness of time, my life will be the better for this Birmingham meeting. No, only kidding. But I think if Gordon Brown and his cabinet keep this sort of thing up then we will all start to feel sorry for them. Hang on, was that the reason? Then again we all deride the EU for shuffling back and forwards between Brussels and Strasbourg, we can only hope there is not too much gypsy in Gordon Brown otherwise we are stuck with this expensive and futile stunt as a regular feature.

Perhaps at the Birmingham meeting the details of how we can build an extension to our homes without planning permission, see HERE.

This has been promoted as a great help to us all in the depths of the credit crisis and the downturn in the property market.