Authors making the grade on January's blue Monday...

January 19th is said to be the most depressing day of the year, so this headline in the Daily Telegraph caught my eye: "Blue Monday?  Try our celebrity cheer-up tips".  The cynic in me just had to click on the link as I wondered what little gems (probably costly) these celebrities were coming up with.  I was stunned: a few of them carry no cost at all and many carry low cost treats.  But then, the DT hasn't trotted out your usual celebrities.

Fresh from winning the CWA's Cartier Diamond Dagger 2009, Andrew Taylor recommends chatting, especially about books, and highly recommends reading groups.  (I wonder what he thinks of his new celebrity status?)

Another crime author featured is R.S.Downie who recommends playing tennis at Blackheath Park @ £6.50 for the hire of a court.

Now back to the depressing bit.  Just 24 hours before, Professor Dylan Jones-Evans of the University of Wales wrote this enlightening article about the state of the economy last week.  Then on blue Monday things got worse.  Much worse.  Will Hutton said we look like "...Iceland-on-Thames..." and Peter Oborne thinks "We're a nation on the brink of going bankrupt".  What a day!

Comments

[cfr]

Maxine, do you mean this article?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/4301285/We-have-every-right-to-be-angry-with-the-bankers.html

If so, many thanks for the alert, it's excellent. The best one I have read to date.

[Maxine]

Just to hastily add, I don't disagree with you or Norm, CFR. I have long been an advocate of investment in production (whether manufacturing, intellectual or other) and I have spent 30 years of continual employment in such a goal. I agree about the bankers but would just add that "nobody MADE anyone take out huge loans in the American sub-prime market" (or anywhere else). Anyway, I am sure we are all in agreement about this. I don't only read Peston's blog, I follow others as well and read The Times avidly, so am getting all sides of it, and all are agreed that these bankers with their golden handshakes and pensions should be (as someone Johnson put it in the Telegraph today) guillotined (after making them give back their ill-gotten gains first)....

[Helene]

My "Blue Day" arrived when I learned that my favourite bookshop in London will close at the end of January after 21 years in business. Indeed, Murder One closing its doors for the final time is really bad news... I received their newsletters each week for ideas of books and bought books in their small but packed with written treasures store each time I was in London. :-(

[cfr]

Apols in advance for any swearing in my response as I am feeling a tad more than incensed, just like Norm.

Maxine, good to hear that the son of a Labour peer has finally seen the light. I think he's been too busy enjoying his "scoops" - which have been questioned by some in relation to adherence to stock market rules, which in my mind also questions the government's behaviour - to see the disaster that could be imminent. Let's not talk ourselves into that one. Yes, someone is already doing it for us, thanks to this from "This is London":

'Jim Rogers, co-founder of the Quantum Fund, the main hedge fund of George Soros, the man who broke the Bank of England in 1992, today declared: “I would urge you to sell any sterling you might have.” Speaking to Bloomberg news agency, he added: “It's finished. I hate to say it but I would not put any money in the UK.”'

Thanks Jim. Words in free markets usually turn into self-fulfilling prophecies. And sterling is at a low equating to earlier in the new millennium (2004?), not reflecting a queue for bread yet. Were we so out of kilter in 04? That was during our "boom" years surely?

Norm, I hear every nuance you command when reflecting on "uniquely well placed to withstand the recession". Brown seeks accountability from bankers (so he says) who got us into this mess, but where is his own? He had no long term vision or strategy. Surely he must acknowledge his own hand in this fucking mess? While the FSA have gone into micro-detail over the years in terms of compliance, it is now obvious that the big picture was lost due to the money made. But it's like the very old, well known fraud called the "South Sea Bubble" and "bubble" is as appropriate now as then.

And what really galls me is that bankers have continued to pay out and receive bonuses, even after the market decline and in some cases, even after government bail-outs.

In addition, Brown's first tranche of help was clearly delivered with no adequate conditions that the banks did in fact lend money again. It hasn't worked and that's the proof. Hence tranche 2. Meanwhile small, medium and large companies have not seen an extension of credit to keep them going in these times.

Oh for the escapism and love of crime fiction. Yrsa's Last Rituals inspired me in more ways than one. Today, I think of some nasty acts in there while also thinking of Labour's top weights. Revenge would be a fine thing, but it wouldn't help our economy. Ironically, as I'm sure you'll already appreciate, I refer to an Icelandic author and novel. Perhaps we should emigrate there while sterling can still buy something of value?

The reporting is better today - unless you are an LTSB/HBOS customer (shares down almost as badly as RBS yesterday) - but then, Obama provided this UK government with a chance to spin again and hide bad news. Expect more eye-openers tomorrow and in the two days after. We can't hide and Brown needs to realise that. His lead so far seems to have proved spurious and questionable at the least. His history, in my mind, is a wreck of a placing in a position of power.

LOL! All those years ago "New Labour" won their place in history and embarrassingly swung their hips to "Things Can Only Get Better". I always said they'd go out on a poor economy (such is their history); but never did I imagine that it would be as bad as this.

[Norm]

Weren't we uniquely well placed to withstand the recession? Isn't this all the fault of the Americans, a redneck in a trailer park in the Ozarks and an African American lady in Cleveland Ohio who defaulted on their $700 a month mortgages bringing the World's financial system crashing down?
Nothing to do with outrageous salaries and bonuses in the City, 125% Northern Rock mortgages, selling gold reserves at the bottom of the market, relying on service and financial services instead of manufacturing and encouraging everyone in the UK to run up huge credit card debts.
We are facing cuts in services and increased Council tax because our city wanted an extra 0.50% interest and invested £5 million in Icelandic banks. BAH !!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Maxine]

Yes, Robert Peston of the BBC, whose blog I follow with a fascinated horror, is not sanguine either.

I like Andrew Taylor's tip! I notice that several bookshops and publishers are promoting "stay in and read a book" as a response to the financial crisis. Reading groups - in reality or online ones for those of us whose friends with similar reading interests do not live locally - are a great extension of this, food for the mind at little cost and not leading to excessive weight gain!