Fancypants

Grauniad article "Save our suppers!" say obese usurers.

Most probably because they so desperately want to believe it is true.

or a Judeo-Cymric doctor?

I watched the earlier broadcast, and what struck me was how this Gary gadge trotted out - almost verbatim - the same tired old guff used by Brown the previous day. This suggests to me that he hasn't really thought about it in any great detail, but is just clinging fervently onto any comforting scraps he can pick up. I am reminded to some degree of Galbraith's understanding of the term "conventional wisdom"

grim faces on the tube? Much like any other day, in all honesty.

Yoinks! Who'd have thought you were a roots fan!? Can I register with your surgery please?

yeah, until about lunchtime, where he will knock off and enjoy a long lunch with his chums in the City - i.e. get plied with free booze and food in order to ensure continuing sympathetic coverage on the public service broadcaster.

Clearly the only thing of Declan's to match the size of his portions, is the size of his mortgage.

to the OP - much the same logic was espoused by crazy bulls after Katrina wiped out New Orleans, and even with the WTC. There is a modicum of sense in the theory, although it fails to take account of other, more important factors at work. If we were to accept the theory, then perhaps the planet will eventually be rebuilt better than before once the human race has been removed, much like it eventually reconfigured after an asteroid extinguished the dinos et al...

no, but there's definitely a funny smell in the air...

I've been banging on about this for some time. Ujima is very much the NRK of the HA sector... the whole sector is deeply flawed and carrying unmanagable debt. Expect it to get taken back into public hands eventually, at great expense to the taxpayer. The "social enterprise" experiment is doomed.

almost wish I'd dragged my sorry **** into the office today

I expect its nothing more sinister than a journalist with a worryingly vast mortgage, supported by a sub-ed suffering the same.

the marina is classic newbuild hubris. Even the existing flats, some many years old, lay unoccupied and/or unsellable. A much more limited development here could have done the city some real long-term good, now it is destined to become a slumland by the sea, ruining the area for all.

normally not one of the worst culprits, but could anyone explain to me just how Reuters managed to come up with this headline in view of the actual content of the article? link

Iskandar - truly excellent stuff mate, this is an area that genuinely fascinates me. I presume you have read Peter Heather? I'd be interested in any of your book recommendations concerning the financial history of the Roman Empire (if indeed such things exist, I've not located anything that interesting myself yet)

now and again one may be offered up to the baying mob as a ritual sacrifice. pour encourager les autres

Hmm, will this same process soon begin to work in reverse, I wonder?

according to "three sugars please" Declan this morning, this 47% figure was the one that really leapt out at him. Did he buy 5 years ago I wondered, or was that figure infused with the delicate aroma of frying bacon as a cynical honeytrap set by Nationwide?

Gizajob

not exactly a chip off the old block then?

Funny you should bring that up LJ - you sent me on a trip down memory lane there. I haven't kept up to date with the more recent Mole books, but interestingly wikipedia tells us that:

It's the "churn" of constant re-development that is commonly mistaken for "growth" it ends soon

Keeping steel workers and miners in work when it seemed uneconomic obviously presented better value than keeping hedge fund managers in their jobs. Plus, hanging on to manufacturing would have reaped rewards 30 years later!

HiH - got a link?