TALE OF THE UNEXPECTED: I HAVE THE BIG 4.5 RUNNING SCARED

Horse – stable – bolted – springs to mind as the governments of the UK and US outlaw what was until yesterday the most lucrative form of legal robbery known to man.

The short-selling of shares (too involved to explain here; look it up if you don’t know) enabled the very greedy to rob the very stupid and greedy – in this case, the banks – at the expense of everybody else, i.e. me and you.

I’ve heard a lot of talk in the past few days of ‘the death of capitalism’. Bollocks! You can’t kill greed. The very greedy bastards will just lie low till the fuss is over, till the world’s financial markets are on some sort of an even keel, and then start all over again. With a new way of fleecing greedy bankers/brokers/innocent schmucks.

I hereby pledge that greed will not be allowed when Napper Assets Banking is up and running. My start-up (see Tuesday’s entry) has been slow, thanks to some sneaky bastard from one of the Big Four – now Four And A Half since Lloyds TSB swallowed the Halifax (HBOS as was).

I have been infiltrated to distract me from my purpose. In the past week my favourite old gardening watch (as opposed to my semi-posh gold watch) and a new steak knife have disappeared into thin air. Gone. Vanished. Mrs N and I have wasted hours searching for both, turning the house upside down and slowly coming to the conclusion that the other has had a senior moment and put them ‘somewhere safe’.

But I watched enough TV episodes of the Tales Of The Unexpected in the early-80s to know that someone is sneaking into Napper Towers, either in the night or when we are out, to steal things, re-arrange things, hide things, to make us gradually appear bonkers until we are fighting tooth and nail and eventually the authorities are called and we are sectioned. Then they can make off with all our wealth – or in this case, the fledgling NAB.

My money is on the new Lloyds TSB/HBOS conglomerate. I think I have them running scared. Sorry, boys, I have your number. And don’t even try to wangle your way in under an assumed name. Any applicant called Lloyd Bosh will get no shares but plenty of short shrift.

Beats short-selling any day.