Brother, Can You Spare Me A Dime?

Say what you will about Bill Blunt, but no-one has ever called him a doomsayer.

These are tough economic times we live in. And none tougher than for those of us who, like myself, were advised by that odious piece of human refuse, Danny Frobisher, to invest in banking stocks just before Christmas. At the time, it all sounded such a reasonable proposition. In his own, inimitable, words (uttered as he downed his fifth double vodka followed by an advocaat 'chaser') "They're as safe as houses, boys!"

I don't think I need to rehearse the world events that have since given the lie to his assertion. Suffice it to say that Danny Frobisher hasn't shown his face in the saloon bar of The Rampant Stallion for nigh on a month, and the smart money's on it being a good while before he ever does.

What little of my life savings that were left after Mrs Blunt and her fish-loving paramour rifled my pockets after our acrimonious divorce have thus gone up in smoke or, at the very least, have gone to fund the annual bonus of some undeserving City type.

All of this is a roundabout way of explaining why my postings to this blog have been a trifle intermittent of late. Apart from spending more time than was perhaps reasonably necessary in trying to locate Mr Frobisher (the better to be able to punch his lights out), I have been forced to emerge from my supposed 'retirement' in order to earn a bean or two. That's why the more observant of my readers will have noticed that I now have a regular column in the Twickenham Globe. My weekly tips on Surviving The Credit Crunch have already been well-received, and there's even talk of my articles being syndicated in the Cirencester Chronicle. Every cloud has a silver lining, as the bloody optimists keep on telling us.

While I wholeheartedly admire the attempts of fellow bloggers to single-handedly kick-start the UK economy, it will take more than buying a Turkish-manufactured flatscreen TV to do it. I fear that I'll be working for another decade, at least, before the Blunt finances are back on an even keel. If it needs the trenchant words of a man who is prepared to tell it like it is, then so be it.