Losing Face

The real reasons for the Stockmarket crash

So what I think happened is this: American banks have been lending money to slack-jawed Gerry Springer-fodder, who haven’t been able to keep up with their payments. As a result all the investment bankers are hunched weeping over their Blackberries, instead of flashing their cash, and I’m no longer being bought cocktails when I go out near the City. It doesn’t really seem fair, does it?

In truth, the City of London isn’t having too serious a crisis of confidence, in spite of the headlines and the exciting spiky graphs next to them. Certainly any photographer heading up to try and catch a hedge fund manager leaping to his death from the 28th floor of 30 St Mary Axe would have been sadly disappointed (in any case, it would be more of a slide than a leap if you were near the top of The Gherkin).

But it did lead me to wonder exactly what all these people were actually doing up there. They work these 80-hour weeks, and earn enough money to happily ply a random girl with cocktails all night, even though she would never, ever date a man in a pinstripe suit. Yet they still can’t figure out that cash leant to Mid-Western mouthbreathers, whose only qualifications are the stars on their name-badges, might not represent a brilliant investment.

Frankly, the ‘sub-prime mortgage market’ and ‘diversified risk’ have far less to do with this chaos than bloody Facebook. Journalists are pretty early adopters when it comes to procrastination applications, but by the time I arrived on Facebook, every stockbroker, accountant and banker in London was already there, changing their status every 7 minutes, and posting drivel on each other’s walls. It’s hardly surprising, given how astoundingly dull their jobs must be, but it probably left them with about three minutes each day to study the financial markets.

London’s exclusive restaurants, glitteriest bars, and dullest sporting events* are going to find themselves pretty empty while the money-men try to pick up the pieces of this latest balls-up. But since they’ve all just been banned from Facebook by their companies - and have completely lost the ability to communicate with their friends by any other means - perhaps the City-boys wouldn’t have been out much anyway.

*Cricket matches, obviously.

Rock ‘n’ Roll-ups

They might be pushing pensioner age but Rolling Stones Ronnie Wood and Keith Richards proved they’ve still got that rebel streak in them. Lighting up cigarettes on the O2 stage despite the smoking ban has sparked controversy but the crowd loved this rock ‘n’ roll spirit, however far it is from the wildness of the band’s early days…

Anyone seen a Constable?

It was bound to be one of those "I’ll just put it there for safe keeping" moments when a Mr John Platt slipped Constable’s drawing of a church between the pages of his art volumes, which were left to the British Museum. Over 100 years on, the sketch has been discovered by curator Felicity Myrone and now scholars are scratching their heads over how Platt had it in the first place.

Big Lot of Fuss over Nothing

It’s still uncertain whether this is another publicity stunt (Louis Walsh and X Factor springs to mind) but Celebrity Big Brother is looking set to be axed from our screens following last year’s controversy. How will we cope without a handful of Z-listers tearing each other to bits?

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