In that place, that special place, that undefined place, the place of no return...

I shouldn't find it amusing but I do...

Having a conversation that ended up straying into danger territory about 'the place' should cause most women to tremble in their Jimmy Choos and feel sick in the pit of their stomach.

However, it just struck me with a fit of the giggles. I could not believe that I was starting to hear the same old routine phrases that I always hear. And for the first time in my life, I actually found it funny.

Why is it that its always exactly the same conversation, but just different people saying it each time! Do men use a secret script that's hidden somewhere on the internet or passed down from father to son, from uncle to goat?

Girls will know the usual phraseology and these age-old relational ripostes are about to be BUSTED. Guys, we know what you mean when you start trotting out these ridiculous lines.

So don't!

My Top Five Flake-out Sentences

1) "I'm not in a good place right now"
Surprisingly enough, neither am I. I'm currently on the toilet, trying to force the shy turtle to make his exit, while listening to your appeal for sympathy - an appeal that, ironically, is your lame excuse for breaking up. Well you try squeezing out that roast beef while listening to some whiny-assed muppet clutching around the Barrel of Bad Excuses to find a reason to break up with you. THAT'S called being in a bad place.

What's even more galling is that this 'bad place' is not really a bad place. It's not a frickin' metal shipping container secreted in the Eritrean desert, stuffed full of the carcases of rotting dogs. It's merely a place of some level of stress that is caused mostly because all your problems are swept under the carpet instead of being dealt with in a mature and grown-up way. Therefore, instead of sorting out these ongoing issues, you decide to break off a perfectly good thing because it's easier to cut and run than maintain a relationship and deal with your failings.

What you really mean: I don't fancy you any more.

2) "I don't want to hurt you but I am just so confused right now."

You're confused?!!! If you don't want to hurt us, then - don't! Seems pretty straightforward to me. Are you genuinely confused about whether or not to hurt someone? My advice would be - and this may be way out there, I know - that there is no real confusion. Either you want to hurt someone or you don't. If you don't, then don't talk such bollocks and push people away from you for no other reason than a weird sense of self-preservation.

If you DO want to hurt someone in order to break with them, then just do it. Don't be confused about it.

What you mean: I don't fancy you any more

3) "You deserve better than me"
Yeah.... You really don't believe that, do you? You've probably met some lady with quite big gazungas, and would really relish the opportunity to bury your head in them and go 'BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR' without feeling any guilt attached to the fact that you are still attached to another woman while treating yourself to some maraca action.

Either that, or you really have such low self-confidence that you can't accept the fact that some girl - ie, myself - has been dumb enough to say yes when you asked her out. In which case, yes, we really do deserve better, and you should snap out of your morbid self-pity and get a frickin life rather than drag us down to the lowly level of your martyrdom.

What you mean: I don't fancy you any more

4) "I think you and I want different things"
No shit, Sherlock!! Men and women want different things - WOAH, WOAH, WOAH, WOAH, WOAH.... Wait a minute... hold the PHONE! Men want different things from women? Wait? What the ... I have to completely change my whole world view about everything that I have ever known or believed or held to be true!!!

I always thought that we women also wanted to discuss in detail the inability of Johnny Wilkinson to convert a try in the Ireland v England Grand Slam Match, while scratching our bellies, drinking Stella and wishing that we could dive our heads face-first into an enormous pair of gnorks and go 'BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR' into that heaving, sweaty cleavage.

I always believed that men, in turn, thought about kittens more than 30 times a day, worried whether their shoes did match the handbag and needed to research the best type of conditioning masks that would not only protect the colour, but also enhance the strength of the hair shaft to prevent unsightly breakage.

AND NOW YOU TELL ME THAT WE WANT DIFFERENT THINGS????? Oh my gosh. I feel so stupid. How could I have been so visually challenged?

What you mean: I don't fancy you any more.

5) "I need to be on my own right now."
You're a self-absorbed computer geek who can't maintain a proper relationship with a real woman, and need to go back into the recesses of your room and whack one out to a picture of Lara Croft, naked.

What you mean: I am a serial masturbator.


***

When mentioning this to a male friend, he wrote: "Seems we've been busted, guys! No this script, it has been passed down through generations. It was shared when the Egyptians were building the Pyramids, when the Romans invaded Gaul, in the trenches of the Somme, broadcast on the wireless, when we sent rockets to the moon and now via the wonders of the Internet."

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Teen bloggers

Dear Diary
Today I saw my new tutor. He was SO fit! I liked the way his tie hangs.
***
Today SUX!!! I HATE MATHS (lol)!!! WANNA SLEEEEEEEEP
***
My tyre blew up on the way to class, I had to push my bike up the street
***

No, my dear bloggers, the Mermins is not regressing into childhood. For her teenage years were spent writing reams of epic poetry, fairytales and novellae. Not pouring out her soul in public angst in some cyber-medium that hovers between the very personal and the 'I don't care who knows about my menstrual cycle'.

Which is what the Merms is ranting about today. Teen bloggers. Bloggers who don't have anything real to blog about. Youngsters today are being encouraged by thoroughly irresponsible tutors to go online and tell the world about the music they listen to, the boyz they love and the girls they want to kiss.

It's appalling. While browsing on Homo Escapeons earlier, he first raised the spectre of this dire trend to vent among the illiterate younger class. Not content with Bebo or Facebook or MySpace, they have ventured into the world of blogging with personal pages that look uber-cool and yet have absolutely nothing to say of any interest at all.

Now that's not entirely true, some youngsters have a wonderful and wicked sense of humour, or a real concern about what's going on outside their pampered little lives. But the majority of teen blogs I've stumbled on have nothing more to say than "I love Edward" in various spectrae of text-speech.

If only the Cyberspace were not so capacitous that it could subsume all this blether and drivel. Why does it upset me so, you may ask? What harm could a teenyblogger possibly do by outpouring their emo-angst online?


Sigh. Life is so unfair

I'm glad you asked.

1) They're not EMO. At least the EMO have something interesting to say. The darkest moments most of these chastity-ring-wearing airheads have to say is their 'poetry' about death, candles and mirrors. Everyone who has ever been 17 has written poems about death, candles and mirrors. It's just not interesting to anyone but you!

2) They don't use proper words. Blogs are there to explore the power of the written word. How can you honestly fill a blog space with lol, strdy wuz gr8! <3 da 3 brgers @ Maccyd's! IMMD?

3) If it's not interesting, don't expect people to read anything. I read one poor soul's tedious blog where they write about a new song they downloaded off iTunes each day. The premise is very interesting - but they don't actually do a critique of the song. All we're told is what the song is and a new picture skiffled from iStoxx of a rabbit or a cat in a hat. If this were an exploration of virtual Dadaism, I would be impressed. As it was, I wanted to poke my eyes out with a spoon.

4) If it's not interesting, don't expect people to post anything. Another young female student was complaining that no-one wanted to post anything on her blogs. But they were so dull. "I went to college, I finished my dissertation (YAAAY) and then I had a pizza. Yummy." IS ANYONE LISTENING TO ME??? No, honey, you were given a $34,000 car for your sweet 16th and you have the mental agility of handcream.

5) If you're going to post such drivel, then at least put up pictures of yourself so we can mock you to your face, a la David Thorne, whose account has been temporarily suspended, but was arguably the best blog that has ever been, or ever will be, on the face of the internet. Although it was probably his mocking of people to their face that caused his account to be suspended.

6) All failing, stick up a picture of a kitten or George Clooney, naked. At least you will generate some mild interest from middle-aged women who tend to like both those things.

As it is, I am sick of having to wade through drivel when I am on the lookout for surprising and interesting new blogs. I have found that the best ones by far are not from students that have all the time in the world to be creative, but who don't actually do anything with their time. The best blogs are from real people who have seen and overcome real problems, who take the time to explain things in a level of detail that thrills, entertains and draws us in.

I'm not classing myself as one of these. Not by any means. But I do know that, if I were a teenager, my blog would be a heck of a lot more interesting. And If I could hack into anyone else's blogs, there would be carnage - delightful, beautiful, carnage conducted in the ether:

Today I saw my new tutor. He was SO fit! I liked the way his tie hangs. I want to hang it tightly around his neck until he DIES.

***

Today SUX!!! I HATE MATHS (lol)!!! WANNA SLEEEEEEEEP. Then sleep, my child, sleep. Drink this drink. It will make all the bad maths go far, far away.....

***

My tyre blew up on the way to class, I had to push my bike up the street and then the girl of my dreams came up to me. I stopped on a slight hill, which made me sweat even more as I tried to stop the bike from rolling backwards, although my weak and puny girly arms were straining every muscle. She smiled sweetly, grabbed my bicycle pump, and shoved it right up my////////// ACCOUNT SUSPENDED

Things I will not rant about this year: 4. THE MIXED METAPHOR

Mix it up, baby!

I've been getting a raft of poorly-written features from various financial freelances. Now this is surprising, because financial journalists are usually much more restrained in their use of vocabulary and what my former English teacher used to call 'purple prose'.

Compared to the political commentators in the national press, whose articles are more self-congratulatory than informative, or the fashion writers, who mistake criticism of the famous for investigative reporting, financial journalists usually provide you with a record of what has happened, combined with (hopefully) informed analysis of why.

Usual formula:
Banks have raised their dividends to XXX from XXX, because they want to do XXX. Sum Expert says: "XXXX".
The end.

Which is how it should be. But recently, I've been getting copy riddled with inaccurate information, plenty of Warren Buffets and - horror of horrors - mixed metaphors.

Given that the market is not great for freelancers at the moment, you would think they would show more determination to produce great copy and therefore secure repeat business.

Not so.

Here are some howlers for your delectation and amusement, and for my rantification:

The Three-way mixed metaphor:

"The investment and asset management world has been turned on its head and we are now charting unknown waters, but Elizabeth is confident that AGI has a winning strategy."

"Markets are good and investors are being urged to dive right in and bite off the top of the cherry."

And my favourite, a six-way mixed metaphor from someone whose writing many of you will read in the national press:

“Beating the herd to the punch can sometimes be the best recipe for success, and JPMorgan’s Indian Investment Trust is proof of this particular wisdom. While the rest of the world has woken up to India only relatively recently, JPMorgan’s Indian Investment Trust has been quietly beavering away there for years.”

HOWL!

Neither a buyer nor a seller be

Cast thy bread upon the waters

After having had a look at my share account on etrade I've got several bones to pick with my own self for getting involved with an online service. It's not that my account has done badly; in fact, my punt on beer and the rise of alcoholism post-crunch has paid off handsomely.

What does disturb me is that it costs just so much to make a trade. Given the proportion of money-to-fee that I have the online site, it means that any sale I make will result in my paying far more in fees than I will have made up in profits.

The resolution to this is, of course, to invest more into the site. But that is going to prove to be a false economy: the UK version of the site is moving across to Waterhouse, whose fees are even higher than those I am paying on eTrade. The higher the amount that is in there, the more likely it is that I will have to shell out a higher transfer fee if I don't want to go with Waterhouse.

So if I wait, I will get stung in the transfer; if I transfer now to a different provider, I get stung for commensurate fees and if I sell, any profit I made on the back of the depressed drunks of the UK will be evaporated.

What remains for me is to grin and bear the loss and sell out now. I may be able to get a paltry double-digit return back after all the fees.

Which brings me to my main point: even if you think you know how to trade, don't unless you really do have a lot of money to invest in stocks and shares and can absorb any trading fees; b) you have the time to trade frequently - more than 5 times a month - and therefore will benefit from lower transactional fees.

Otherwise, you might as well write it off as a good idea at the time.

harrumph! The good book says to cast your bread upon the waters and in seven days it shall return unto thee. I don't think it was referring to online share dealing sites as far as skinflints like the mermaid are concerned.

Things I will not rant about: 3. The Citizen Reporter

Now I'm no fan of daytime TV, nor do I advocate GMTV as a medium by which intelligent information is disseminated effectively to the nation.

However, latest shock! Horror! claims (excessively hyped up in The Mirror) reveal that an angry public has prompted an investigation by Ofcom. You can read the story here: GMTV blasted again after expert claims breast milk is as ‘bad as cola’ - mirror.co.uk

Quite simply, what was expressed by a professional midwife as a genuine medical opinion about not letting your children drink breast milk after the age of two has been jumped on by the great unwashed as a terrible thing to say.

Why? If all the people who wrote/phoned in to complain were all medical professionals with experience in paediatric care, then yes, I think Ofcom should complain. But they were nearly all mothers who have let their children breastfeed well into toddlerhood. One panellist admitted that her four-year-old still breastfeeds. (Psych).

Seriously, that is weird. Let the child grow up, woman. Do you want it to have an Oedipal complex? Do you want it to turn into the character from Little Britain?

Back to the theme. this brand of citizen journalism really bugs me. Why do we have to listen to the voice of Mr Joe Average about the state of the economy? Why do I care that Tracey Shadwick, 22, of East Finchley, thinks that John Terry should still be captain of the England football team despite his philandering? Why is it important that Jane Doe of the Home Counties believes the midwife's comments were reprehensible? Is Joe Average an economist? No. Is Tracey a renowned sports commentator? I don't think so. And Jane Doe's children are locked up in Thailand for smuggling hash on their year out from Oxbridge.

Let's get this straight: I pay a licence for my TV, and despite this, I have no control over the content that is beamed into my living room from any of the channels. What I do want is informed, intelligent opinion that will help me make informed, intelligent decisions about where to invest, whether to sell my flat, how to feed my children (if I had any, that is).

I do not want 15 minutes of my precious time taken up with the half-baked rants of some lonely people who need to voice their opinions on every single matter on which they have no proven authority. All it does is preclude freedom of speech, as was the case with the midwife on GMTV, whose comments are being investigated by Ofcom. As a result of which 'citizen reporting' by the great unwashed, GMTV will have to make a grovelling apology - especially as its weather reports are sponsored by Nestle (or were) - and no doubt the midwife will be held to account for giving her opinion.

By treating this professional woman like a social pariah in this way, the public has reacted to her in exactly the same NIMBY-istic, Voice of Offended Britain, way that they reacted to the BBC showing the BNP Leader Nick Griffin on Question Time before Christmas.

PLEASE

STOP giving opinionated people the right to express views publicly when they have no professional experience to back up their view.

This is how the next GMTV - or even radio phone-in (don't get me started on radio phone-ins) should go.

Lorraine Kelly (for it is she): "Now we go to Lucinda Kirby of High Wycombe. Lucinda, what's your view on whether policemen should carry tasers?"

Lucinda: "Well I have to say..."

Lorraine: "sorry Lucinda, can I just ask if you've ever been arrested? Or a member of your family? Are you or a member of your family in the police force? Have you studied the effects of tasering on the public? Do you work in the medical profession? Have you ever used, or seen, at taser?

Lucinda: "No, I'm a teller for Ladbrokes."

Lorraine: "I'm going to have to stop you there. Thanks for calling in, Lucinda. That's cost you £3 on our premium rate phone lines."

Lorraine Kelly

Things I Will Not Rant About This Year: 2

Human Bedwarmers

This is the second thing that I will not rant about this year: idiot inventions that should have been thought through before being given a massive marketing campaign to the general public.

I refer, of course, to late-breaking news that Holiday Inn is using 'human bed warmers' to warm up your bed before you sleep.

Telegraph story here

This is an utterly moronic idea, no doubt dreamed up by a half-wit village idiot who managed somehow to turn on his TV and successfully watch a session of Dragon's Den on TV.

Propelled to actually engage his cranium in something other than wall-banging, he began to form the dusty vestiges of some images in his head.

"What's happening?" He asked himself. He was thinking. For the first time in his what barely passed for a life, his limp brain began to work. "I could come up with an idea and get some money!"

He looked around his room for some inspiration, although he didn't know what that word meant. Kettle... he could invent a kettle that filled itself with water... no, that would take too much knowledge. His cat... he could invent a cat that fills kettles with water - no, no, cats hate water.

His eyes smarted with the pain of trying to think for more than 11 seconds. He closed his eyes and decided to get into bed, exhausted by the mental exertion.

His sheets were cold. Then it hit him! The cat had thrown the kettle at his head. "Owch" he said, rubbing his forehead with his cold hand. "My bed is so cold! Why can't I warm it up?" There was one warm patch on the bed where he'd wet himself, and a dry warm patch next to him. It felt good. "this is where the cat was sleeping! If only I had lots of cats to warm my whole bed." he mused.

Eureka! "My cat could warm up people's beds for them. Wouldn't they be pleased?" And in his excitement, he ran around the room wetting himself.

He rang the BBC. "I've got a great idea for Dragon's Den!" he shouted.

"The time sponsored by Accurist will be 3, 45 and 6 seconds precisely... beep beep beep".

After four hours of waiting for the lady to stop telling him the time, he decided to write to them instead. He found a crayon and a piece of paper and managed to remember to address it and put a stamp on it. It was a day of firsts.

Some time later, he was faced by the Dragons.

"You're a bleedin' lunatic. I'm out"

"As a woman, I like cats, but I don't want a bed full of cats. Does your cat have fleas? How would the cat stay in the bed? Have you thought this through? I'm out."

"I, too, will be out, but first I want to humeeeliate you publicly for several minutes."

"Sounds cheap. I like that. Cheap is good. But I'm allergic to cats. Could you yourself warm up the bed?"

"I suppose so..."

And the dream was born. With Peter Jones' career advertising cheap car insurance on the rocks after being caught with a snow leopard and a line of coke in the Holiday Inn, he needed to find something to get himself back in the game. He rang up Holiday Inn.

"I've found a way to repay you the loss of your reputation. Human bed warmers".

****

Is there anything more dunce than getting people wearing all-in-one body suits made of towels to roll around in your sheets for 5 minutes?

There are so many things wrong with this I'll just have to list my top five:

1) The point of going away is so that someone else makes your bed and you have fresh, clean, cool, ironed, unspoilt linen sheets to slip into.

2) Hot water bottles

3) ROHYPNOL (drink this while we warm your bed - I don't think so)

4) Who farted? Wasn't me... "All part of the warming service, sir."

5) This wasn't what I expected from room service.

JUST NO. NO NO NO NO NO. Holiday Inns, your bed warming service is the biggest waste of PR money you will have ever spent. You are foolish beyond all foolishness. Someone's head (rest) should roll for this.

And you are very lucky I am not ranting about anything this year, or you really would have known what I think.

How To Get Free Stuff (Part 2)

Philadelphia

For those of you who love a cheesy snack, there are TWO fabulous offers on the Philadelphia website Click here

You can get 50p off a normal-sized tub of the stuff if you do a very short survey; you can also get 30p off a tub of splendips - a great snack or lunch-on-the-go.

They both work well on PCs, but if you are on a Mac, they will work best in Safari as Firefox won't print them out on the MaCoupon downloader.

How to Get Free Stuff (part 1)

Broke?

Can't afford to feed the cat, let alone your teenagers?

Then don't worry!

There are so many excellent offers out there in the wide world, so if you are feeling the pinch after Christmas - and like me, you won't get paid until the end of the month - then take a look at these offers to get Free Stuff.

For many of these, you will need to install the MacCoupon Printer software, but this is free. It means the bar codes will print out properly so you can use them in stores.

Free 100g Milka chocolate bar
Milka Chocolate Bar
You have to play a little game online, but if you go to the website and stick with the game (it takes less than a minute), you will get a voucher for a free bar of chocolate. The birdsong and buzzing bee noises are a little annoying, so best do this at home!
Click here for details: Milka

Things I Will Not Rant About This Year

Angry old woman
Things I Will Not Rant About This Year (part one)

1) Slow women who leave it until the last possible second to search down their voluminous handbags for their travel passes, thereby clogging up the ticket barriers during rush hour.

2) Slow women who have no spacial awareness when walking on the underground/going up stairs/loitering at the bottom/top of escalators, mouths half-open, catching flies.

3) Women who read the two above posts and decided to get on their feminist high horses and ride off in all directions. Let's face it, I am a woman and I notice that 90% of all corporeal delays in traversing the underground are caused by women and their lack of spacial awareness. Men are not so slow, nor do they lose their passes in great big handbags.

4) People who watch you running for the bus and, instead of holding the bus, merely smile and say 'shame' when you get to the stop.

5) People who ask me 'is that your cat?' just after I have called him, he has come running towards me, and has climbed onto my back.

NO, this is some random cat that for some reason likes the smell of my tuna paste deodorant, and can't get enough of it. Sometimes it takes me four hours to unpick his claws from my neck.

6) Men who cannot commit to a relationship. (This might be one resolution I have to break)

7) Random phone calls from PRs asking if I've received the press release. If I were interested in any way, shape or form in the fact that your poxy little Midlands-based trading firm has hired a new information technician, then a) it would have been the slowest news week on record b) I would have called you. If you need to talk to someone, please, call the Samaritans, because they care a whole lot more than I do.

8) People who ask a question, and interrupt you half-way through with a 'so what you're saying is'... before telling you something completely different from what you were going to say. LISTEN AND LEARN, people. LISTEN AND LEARN.

9) People who make false judgements about something you have said or done.

10) People who tell you 'you need a break, you need some "you time"', before asking you immediately when you can next come round and see them/when they can come round and be fed by you etc etc. IF I WANTED TO SHARE MY 'ME' TIME I WOULD GO ON BIG BROTHER. Any free time that I get to myself I want BY myself, without having to answer the phone 24/7. If you want to see me, book me in advance (this might also explain why point 6 is going to be increasingly difficult for me).

11) People who assume that just because you have a cat, therefore you hate dogs. This was a reason why one bloke did not follow up on the first date, because he liked dogs. I love dogs!! I live in a flat in the middle of a city, dumbnuts. Might that be the reason I don't have an Irish Wolfhound? Loser.

12) I will not call people 'loser'.

13) In addition, I will not rant about:
Clusters of foreign exchange students clogging up the streets at lunchtime, gazing in Oxford Street shop windows and preventing me from enjoying my 32-second lunch break;
Old people who push in front of you to try to get on the bus before 9am;
People who don't add up their shopping and get to the queue in front of you and then can't pay for a couple of items (I've usually paid for them, unless I recognise them from the time before. Losers);
People who think washing is optional;
People who gossip;
Big Brother;
Any reality TV shows;
People who moan about the weather;
Hollyoaks (is there ever a day when it ISN'T on?);
People who think using a guitar in church is akin to slaughtering a goat on the communion table and daubing the walls of the creche with its warm blood;
People who slaughter goats on the communion table;
People who ask my advice, then ignore it to their detriment and I have to restrain myself from saying 'I told you so';
People who say 'I told you so';
Avocado sneaking its way into sandwiches and salads;
Rocket Leaves - EVERYWHERE, on EVERY MENU.

I've reached an impasse, but this list is no means exhaustive.

Happy new year.

RIP Baby Girl Patches

Patches

I remember when you were just a wee kitten, bossed around by two older female cats. You snuck into my room each night and slept on my bed. Last time I saw you, you were playing 'boo' and having a great time of it. Sleep well, little girl. I'll miss you x

Wither the arrows?

Andy Brough

There are so many headlines about which way the markets will go. '2010 will be a volatile year'; 'UK deficit warning from City economists'; 'Europe's chief executives see sluggish 2010'; 'Optimism rises for recruitment'... and so on ad infinitum.

I am reminded of a sage City fund manager, one Andy Brough, who had evidently had enough of personal finance journalists ringing him up to ask him his take on the market (this was back in 2004). His comment still stands in the annals of FT history:

'Look, we believe the markets could go up. But then again, they could go down. If not, they might go sideways.'

Quite.

'Twas the night before Christmas

'Twas the night before Christmas
And all of my flat
Was awash with old papers
And toys for the cat,

The aftermath of baking,
Washing up in the sink.
A half-opened bottle
Of very strong drink

(Used for the pudding)
Was still on the side
Next to piles of work:
Poor Mermins cried.

With brows that are beaten
And nagging at home
No wonder I pen this
Unseasonal poem!

I turn to the future
(in a manner of speech)
Where's my silver lining?
Is it just out of reach?

I'm not looking forward
To pretending it's fun
Eating and jesting.
I'd rather just run

Away from forced laughter
And boring family tales
And stay in my duvet
Until Boxing day sales.

Christmas dinner? Bah humbug!
All the presents are trite
And there's no Disney feeling
And the Christmas ain't white.

Oh I know of the Reason
- Good news of great joy -
So despite all the moaning,
I hope you enjoy

But if you're feeling gloomy,
Just about all done in,
Join with me at 6:30
(I'll be hitting the Gin).

Bottoms up! And your chin, too.
We'll drink til we moan
2009 may have been dreadful,
But we're never alone.

Good luck for this Christmas
God bless you as well.
2009 was a scoundrel,
But 2010 will be swell.

the Banker's dozen

The New Economics Foundation claims that banks are socially useless, as, unlike cleaners and care workers, they have no benefit to society at large NEF.

Evidently there is some political pandering to the masses with this report. Without banking, cleaners could not get loans to buy houses. Without banks, care workers would not have hospitals or homes to work in.

This is a glib response. The arguments against banks being socially useful are plentiful: while some bankers have lined their own pockets, they have contributed to the economic woes of the poorest nations, lining their coffins (well, they probably don't have coffins, but there had to be some element of thoughtful prose). Banks have racked up their own debt, gearing their balance sheets within an inch of their lives, and created a situation where not only are banks in debt to the taxpayer, but the taxpayer is faced with a higher tax bill as a result. Great scott! Our debt is being used to pay off the debts of the banks, so that we can start borrowing from them again. What a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to receive...

But are banks morally bankrupt? Certainly, the policy of chasing that last nickel at the expense of the customer is immoral. The policy of making consumers pay for a bank to manage their deposits, just so the bank can get out of debt - that, too, is immoral. Banks recalling loans to schools, charities, small enterprises and community concerns is, also, immoral - they could, if they wanted to, recall loans from other, larger, private and public companies although this might create relational problems with potentially profitable long-term clients. A charity might not have a lot of money to repay, but it will never be a high earner for the bank.

In that sense, banks are morally reprehensible and have displayed little social usefulness.

However, leaving aside the obvious 'some banks good, some banks bad' argument, banks in general have an important part in society, one which is part of the very woof and fabric of our being. They oil the wheels of industry. They provide the loans for hospitals and similar organisations. They provide mortgages for millions. Without a place to put money, even the smallest depositors would have to bury their money in the backyard or stick it in a cookie jar under the bed.

Thanks to the recklessness of a few, we're all affected: decent mortgage rates are harder to come by, MPPI comes with a higher premium, our jobs are tenuous and our interest rates, zero. But what choice would we have if there were no banks? Who would give us a loan, provide us with a mortgage, cover us for holiday accidents or supply us with cash-in-hand when we're out and about?

I'd challenge the good folks at NEF to try to live for a year without using anything to do with a bank: ask your employers to pay you in cash (and tell them that they cannot take that out of a bank). Don't use credit or debit cards for a year. Refuse to write, or to accept cheques. Put your money under the mattress. Raise a mortgage - and your children - without any loans. Pay for your expensive private healthcare using copper coins. Send your children to a school that has not been helped out by any bank loans.

Without banks, we'd be trading in beads and corn, or heading down to the wharf to find a nice money-lender who will charge an extortionate fee without any security or means of redress. He'll then launch into a diatribe about how 'sufferance is the badge of all his tribe' or climb a tree because he's short. No, wait, I'm getting Shakespeare and the Bible mixed up again - it was bad enough the last time that happened. Fake Scottish accents, witches and a talking donkey? Shrek has a lot to answer for.

Anyway, the banks may have shown little moral fibre, but by golly the economy needs whatever fibre it has.

Isn't this just so cute!?

Amazing pictures of Tube fox on London Underground escalator | Metro.co.uk