Happy Crunch! ing

Some Bankers Being Sorry

 [whispery sexy female voice with French accent ]. Incompetence….. Un parfum inspiré par les banquiers anglaises…..

You saw it here first.

In any case, it doesn’t really matter what I, or what you for that matter, think. If, like me, you’re an outsider to the financial services industry, your opinion on matters monetary, matter not one jot to anyone from the profession. 

 Many people now think of bankers as overpaid and greedy individuals with little sense of anything beyond their own interests and sense of entitlement. This description makes being a banker sound like a hell of a lot of fun, but it’s also a gross oversimplification.

The truth is that Finance is a highly complex industry which is beyond the understanding of most  people. The potential rewards are such that it attracts the hungriest and the most conventionally ambitious, and once in a while, the very brightest too. However there are exceptions to this.

 The other day I was munching a tuna sandwich, still employed, leafing through a Grazia(don’t ask) and reading a whiny whingeing article, written by a 27-year-old female banker, titled I’m Loaded with Cash but I Can’t Get Laid, And It’s Been a While.

Grazia Magazine. Never Again, I Promise

Ok, it wasn’t really called that, because this was Grazia and not Cosmo, but it might as well have been. In this article, said high-achieving,  totally self-obsessed, sexually frustrated  lady complained that bankers were always getting bad press. After all, she reasoned, she had to work an 80-hour week, taking on more risk and responsibility than most people can even dream about, fraternize with clients every evening in tiresome luxurious settings at company events, bear the strain of travel to tax havens set in the tropics, and forego her personal life.

All her friends were getting married and pregnant whilst she was yet to meet someone. Therefore, she reasoned that she had well and truly earned her 150 K a year plus bonus, or whatever she was on, and would people just get off her and her bank’s case just because she was a successful woman who lives in the fast lane and even writes for Grazia and everything.

Serves me right for reading Grazia. Yet this article is quite telling and the way in which it goes about defending the banking classes, is insightful.

Sunshine, just remember you’re going to die one day, just  like the rest of us. So, sort your life out, and quickly. Be happy. Stop whingeing. You are not special, or better than anyone. You happen to work in an industry where a lot of money is created (or not!), like a big factory of wealth. When I worked for a dish liquid manufacturer I took home a lot of dish liquid and I had very shiny dishes which were the envy of all. You have access to money at wholesale rates, and you lend it to people and businesses at retail rates. Or something like that.  You also take a lot of money home for your efforts. Good on you, if that’s what you want, but just remember there are lots of people that work harder than you, that do much more meaningful work and arguably also take more risks for considerably less monetary reward. The entrepreneur, the doctor, the social worker, the performer, the teacher are all examples which easily and immediately come to mind.

Rant over.

There’s nothing at all wrong with making big bucks. I’m all for it . In fact I’m even going to go out on a limb and advance the statement that those who make big bucks are “in general” more capable, smarter if you will, and they also have a higher positive impact on all of us (Maggie sad there is no such thing as society, remember?), than those that don’t. Making big bucks, creating (real) wealth, is a sign, broadly speaking, that you’re doing something right for yourself and for others.
However, there is something which makes me very uncomfortable with an industry full of supposedly highly qualified and capable individuals whom, it would seem, have collectively failed to understand that there i one thing which can totally wipe them out. I guess they are only human, after all.

Money. It's A Gas.

 All so you don’t have to remember that 12.7 chickens are worth one ox.

But all of these things that money does for us are based on one  supposition, which is this:

Money only exists because we all believe that it does. Because we all agree that it should exist, and we agree on what it represents. We therefore trust it to represent reality, but it is not real.

I repeat, it is not real.

It is  a system which exists for man to use. Not the other way round. No more. No less.

And if through our highly sophisticated actions should we undermine and compromise the meaning and integrity of  money and the credibility of the financial systems which support it and that of the experts who supposedly understand it, then we’re all screwed. We can go back to trading chickens. Or gold. Or leaves.

Ever since some brilliant MIT would-be rocket scientists in the 60s realised that NASA didn’t pay half as well as Wall Street and decided to become “financial engineers”, the world has seen some incredible developments in “financial technology”, which now allow us to hedge, spread and trade risk on a global level, as if it were a physical thing.  Parts of this technology even allowed David Bowie to get paid in the present for record s he had not sold yet, thorugh a process called securitization.

A Derivative. We had one, but the wheels fell off

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (M.I.T), THE SIXTIES.

BOB : Chuck?

CHUCK: [annoyed, stops writing mid equation]: Yeah? What?

BOB: Fuck this. Fuck the rockets and the orbits and the E=MC2. Instead, let’s make up some extremely hardcore equations and use them to develop amazing financial products which only a few people in the world have the capacity to understand, but which everyone in the world will be prepared to over-trade, thus paving the way for a future global endemic systemic meltdown of the world’s financials systems in years to come and thereby discrediting the products we invented, everyone who has ever traded them, and the very industry which allowed it to happen. Mind you we’ll be minted beyond our wildest dreams. I think I’ll set myself up as dictator of my own East African country, with the proceeds. You?

CHUCK: Far out man.

And this is, more or less, is what came to pass.

I’m genuinely interested in what’s going to come out of all of this. This week was the first time I heard anyone in Finance, be it in person or on TV, admit to fundamental flaws within their industry.

In fairness, if I was in their shoes I probably wouldn’t rock the boat either. We can only hope that very bright, mostly outstanding human beings which make up the profession as a whole will learn from this, and take the action which is needed to correct what needs to be corrected. After all, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

So, while those super bright guys fix money, in the meantime is anyone interested in trading some chickens for an Ipod Nano?

*With Apologies to Douglas Adams

Don't Count Them Before They Hatch

In a past, more innocent decade he would probably be in intensive care.  But we’re in 2009 which means that the genetically engineered delicious pink antibiotic neutralizes the bugs in his lungs in record time, and he gets to watch one of the twenty five, twenty–four-seven kids television channels which are available to him. Baby TV is the one we settle on, a love-fest of a channel which expertly blends nursery songs with computer generated cartoons. Even a simple “Row Row Row Your Boat” gives Pixar a run for its money, and I vow to watch Baby TV every day from now on. Not really.

Balancing the baby on my lap, I brave the elements and phone up the Dole People . It works like this: a lady who is obviously reading a computer screen with one eye and OK magazine with the other (and thus not really that interested in your welfare) takes you through an enormous questionnaire which is designed to i) test your patience and ii) make sure you get as little cash as possible. As a bonus you’re also made to feel guilty and at risk of not receiving any money for not having made the claim the previous week which was officially the start of your job-seeking period.

Dole Lady [aggressively]: This claim is back-dated. Why are you only making a claim now?

Me:  You mean, why I am making a claim whole five working days after I officially stopped being employed? Oh I suppose that’s because I spent said five days shooting up meths into my right eyeball and robbing the dry cleaners at gunpoint.

I beg of you please, please stop following that script, use your brain, and talk to me. Please. 

Really Me: [apologetically and sheepishly]: Because it was snowing?

During all of this my one-year-old son is  busy making a lot of noise in the background. In order to complete the miserly picture of our living room all that is needed is an empty bottle of gin, an overflowing ashtray, and the Jeremy Kyle shopw in the background.

I’m kidding. Its not so bad.

Taking care of a little toddler when you have no job to go to is easy peesy japaneesy, isn’t it? After all, he’s going to be all day asleep because he’s on antibiotics, right?

I’ve been stuck all day in the flat with an insanely alive little baby. His energy levels are huge, his desire to drink bleach from the kitchen cupboard is monumental, and in short, I’m screwed. How can such a small thing make such a huge mess, and make so much noise?  How is it possible that I have achieved nothing today except make sure that he doesn’t electrocute himself or eat any dishwasher tablets.  Which I suppose is something.

None of this happened when Men Were Men. I don’t think my father or my grandfather (being of a Spanish persuasion) ever did what I’m doing today, even once in their lives. Men of their generation just did not spend a whole working day taking care of a baby. Maybe we kids never got sick, or their mothers were drafted in to help when neeeded. I’m inclined to think that the latter is the case.

Yummy In The Tummy

Come to think of it I remember my grandmother giving me shots in the arse when I was around six years old. Really painful ones, but the word was that she was a qualified “practicioner”. Not a doctor or nurse, you understand, a “practi0ner”. .

Gran, just because you attended the Franco Finishing School Course for Girls and practiced injecting a rubber doll once, does not qualify you to give injections, trust me on this one.

Crazy Seventies people.

When lunchtime comes round, as revenge for killing my day, I slip half a venison burger into my son’s rice and steamed vegetables, a meal awash with the nutrients which are central to him recovering his health.

The baby coos and grins and hungrily chews on his delicious and nutritious meal, blissfully unaware that he’s eating Bambi’s mother.

Tee hee.

As I pulled up the shutters this morning, my P45 sneering at me from the corner of my credit-crunch desk, it suddenly dawned on me why all the Australians who live on our street had been particularly raucous late last night.

There was snow. On the ground. A shed load of it.  My street resembled a scene from Fargo.
All day the streets of London have been populated by gleeful children (every school in Britain has closed for the day) and absolutely astounded antipodeans:

“Ere mate, just look at eet, its rayly cowld?”
‘Yees, that’s becawrse eets froyzing?”
“Guys can’t you dee a deeclarative steetement theet desn’t sewnd like a queestion?

OK, it wasn’t a just “a bit” of snow. A foot of snow fell in London today according to the Met Office, and they have finally agreed on a figure of “heaviest snow in 18 years”, which had been quoted throughout today as “five years”, “thirty five years” and “longest in living memory” (the media have made a meal out of this).

What was really remarkable about today is that, contrary to popular belief by non-Londoners, it never snows in London. 

"Moyte, eeverything ees whaaat"?

You know all those rom-coms which take place against a snowy London backdrop, for example at the end of Bridget Jones where Colin Firth and Hugh Grant are fighting like girls? Not possible. I’ve seen snow on the ground exactly, hum, once, in the last ten years I’ve lived here. It was five years ago as I travelled into town and disappeared again by lunchtime.

I’ve always adored snow since I was a kid. I love the look and feel of it, the way everything looks different, the manner in which it transforms the ordinary places you see every day into something new.

Bishop's Park, Fulham

I’ve never seen London look so beautiful, or people so happy. Everyone was so talkative and spontaneous. People were taking photographs and making snowmen, some of which had breasts.

The funny thing  is, I was supposed to be in Austria sking this week, a holiday which I cancelled due to circunstances. But I’ve gotten my fix of snow anyway, right here on my doorstep.

Austria, eat your heart out.

Thames Walk, Fulham

Sweden‘s rich heritage stems not only from the Vikings, those over-romanticised barbarians who sailed up and down the Baltic in tiny boats wearing rotting horns on green copper helmets, but is also the home of world-class innovators which have brought the world Tetra Pak(tm), zippers, dynamite, and safety matches (I bet the last two were not invented by the same guy).

Heaven. I'm in Heaven.

Sweden is also the home of the Nobel Foundation, the heirloom from the scientist-cum-philanthropist whose name is synonymous with achievement of the highest order.

Yet, when most people think of Sweden only three things come to mind: ABBA, VOLVO, and IKEA. No, SVEN does not count.

Last Sunday I found myself driving to IKEA with my family, to buy a desk for daddy to be credit-crunched on.

My perception of IKEA stores has always been that of a destination for seedy buy-to-let landlords who never return your deposit, and a certain type of British person who pronounces it OY-KEE-R (normally the same person). The Swedes pronounce it EEH-KE’H-AH (those guys have seven vowels, can you believe it. Show offs).

As I negotiated London’s North Circular, I felt very alarmed all of a sudden.

OK,  I was driving to IKEA, check. In a Volvo, check. Blond children with blue eyes in the back, check. Practical, no-nonsense wife in the seat next to me, check. 

Suddenly it hit me – I had become Swedish. 

I probably had died last week in shock, and someone Up There had picked up on my unspoken wishes. Not without a sense of anticipation, I quickly looked into the rear mirror expecting to see kindly twinkly blue eyes with laughter lines, framed by thick locks of golden hair. I was probably called Lars,  and hung like a Viking.
But no, I was still only Spanish and bald, still on the same incarnation apparently.

IKEA, for anyone who has even a minimal appreciation of Marketing, is absolutely gob-smacking. IKEA is the fruit of some of the most deep and incisive commercial contemplations which Mankind has ever achieved. It is twisted, perverse, sheer genius.

 The good people of IKEA understand deeply, fundamentally, how people shop for home-wares, and they (like all retailers) try to sell you as much stuff as is humanly possible, but they accomplish this using techniques which are clever, devious, manipulative and oh-so-subtle.

 It works more or less like this. First, you make a sacrifice to Odin of a precious bank holiday or Saturday, and drive to an out-of-town big yellow and blue warehouse, with a car full of screaming children in the back. The trip will have been economy-motivated, as in “let’s get some practical and cheap children’s furniture” or a “cheap bed for a second bedroom”, or in my case to buy a cheap desk to ride out the credit crunch on.
The first thing IKEA does is to take your kids off you, so you can concentrate completely on spending your money. The free crèche is at right at the entrance. Then into the showrooms you go. These are essentially a massive maze full of home-wares, which you have to tackle in linear fashion.

Fun for The Whole Family

This is no department store where you can go to the relevant section. IKEA insists on making you walk in front of all their merchandise, a Labyrinth of Cross-Sell, if you like.

If you want a desk, you’ll be forced to check out complete kids’ bedrooms, living room sets, bathroom displays, lounge exhibits and kitchen installations. 

I’ve heard rumours to the effect that shortcuts exist, and that you don’t actually need to see everything, but I’m sure that this is just an urban myth.

The result is  that you start to warm to it all. The weekend’s buggered anyway, so you might as well check it out. After all is said and done the stuff they have on display is all very good value. And so it should be since you need to put it all together yourself, and to pick out the individual parts from the warehouse. But that’s fine, that is the IKEAN proposition.

Soon you start to notice all sorts of little things which you never knew existed, and you had no need for. Your interest is piqued by the sort-of-funky Nordic design and product descriptions : BERGSTROM children’s  toys tidying-up net (cool, just what we need), GERTRUDE  aluminium spice-rack-and-knife-holder (now that’s a really good idea, let’s get one, only 9 quid).

As IKEA works is magic over you, it stas wo win the battle and you invariably end up picking out a lot more stuff than you came in for. After all “we’re already here”.

Before you can come to your senses and realise that you are now well on the way to spending 300 quid instead of 100, something amazing happens, you suddenly find yourself standing in a food hall. No more beds, towel racks or toys, just an inviting canteen designed for families.  Laden with product references which you will use later to pick up your products from the warehouse, you encounter a big sign.

Could it be, could it really be?

They're Talking Straight Into My Soul

Oh God, they have Swedish meatballs!

IKEA, I love you, I will never snicker again at you, for you know me better than I know myself.
IKEA not only cleverly offer succulent Swedish style meatballs,  but they also serve other Swedish delicacies such as salmon, herring, and freezing cold stouty Swedish beer.

Just for Dad. Just for me. And everything at IKEA prices. 20 quid for all of us including drinks.

 The canteen offers a play area for kids which which allows you to polish off your food uninterrupted.

As I ate meatball after meatball, I was in sheer Valhalla. Maybe it hadn’t been such a bad idea to come here today after all. Maybe we could do it more often. Maybe, I reflected, I could get even get a job at IKEA and then I’d be able to eat meatballs every single day of my life.

And then, I would be happy.

Michelle. My Belle.

There is no doubt that January 2009 has its place assured in history.

Barack Obama, the first black US president ever, was sworn into office this week, which is simultaneously symbolic, metaphoric, poetic, ironic, very moving, and historical.

Obama is finally in the White House, and it happened this week. Some of you may not see this as pertinent to us here in Europe, and that’s OK, because you’re all special in your own way and mummy loves you very much. 

Now go away and watch some more Big Brother.

As an added bonus, it turns out that Michelle Obama is a joy to behold. She’s really very easy on the old ocular globes, I have to say. I go for that Powerful African American Woman thing she’s got going on (Oprah, you are so the exception to this). I was also perilously close to fancying Condoleeza Rice at one point, I confess.  I used to perk up every time she stood up to address the UN Security Council last summer and no one paid any attention to her, but a closer look revealed strange inscrutable power hairdos which need at least one can of hairspray to produce, plus an enormous gap between her teeth. Condi, it’s not you, it’s me. Anyhoo.

I wasn’t referring to the poor state of the Economy, which is making history with every new statisic, every new number published. Everything that has happened in the last twelve months is uncharted waters and is also guaranteed to make the history PDFs (you see what I did there?). The truth is no one has a clue what’s going to happen next. No one does. Your guess is as valid as that of the best financial brains in the world, which of course is not a great compliment.

 In the last exciting episode we left our hapless hero Gordon about to get eaten by the Credit Crunch Monster, desperately struggling to restore confidence to the financial markets, stop the banking system from colapsing, shielding people from the worst and saving us all from the problems which all started on his watch as Chancellor in the first place.

His armoury so far has consisted of interest and tax cuts, part nationalization of banks, schmoozing world leaders, a vast collection of scowls, and a Chancellor with paradoxical and subversive facial hair. All makes sense in principle, except for the eyebrow thing. But nothing is really working, is it?

The latest solution being offered to the chapter in this never ending story is something called “Quantitative Easing”, something which really, really clever people in high finance such as Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, call [makes quotes with fingers] “printing more money”. This is the latest remedy being offered to address the UK’s economic woes . Ladies and Gentlemen, by next December, courtesy of our avian-looking Chancellor of the Exchequer (Kentucky Fried Chancellor, anyone?) and Hasbro the toy maker, every new Monopoly board game will come with on hundred squid’s worth of real Gee Bee Pee so on next Boxing Day you can beat Gramps and Auntie Amanda at buying bits of London.

The way things are going, by next Christmas you will probably be able to buy real bits of London with one hundred pounds.  Speaking of the pound, it reached a new low today against the dollar, the same exchange rate as 23 years ago. Big investors suchs as hedge funds are now saying “pull out of Britain”. The bastards are supposed to have had a major contribution to make to the shit we’re in. But it is logical, history will repeat itself. The financial community will move on to another place to plunder. The City of London will be no more. I hope they keep Itsu open.

But as far I’m concerned, January 2009 will forever be remembered by everyone (and by “we”, I mean “me”) as the year the record shop in Number One, Piccadilly Circus, closed forever.

Yes, I’m afraid it’s all true.

Tower Records, later Virgin, recently and finally Zavvi, is no more.

Yes, Zavvi. Why name a record store which has years of tradition, which has been visited generations of music lovers and artists, like a pretentious furniture brand?

“See this 200 quid aluminium quid toilet roll holder which cost 50 pence to make? It’s [fanfare sound and drum roll]… ZAVVI, so your friends will think you’re amazing”
”But I don’t have any money”
“We know that. Just put it on our store card, which means that we’ll something that don’t really need with money that you don’t have, and we’ll charge you 30% APR on top of our 5000% mark up for the privilege. We can get away with this because you are greedy, insecure and stupid. All you have to do is sign here and you will be happy forever”
“Thank you ZAVVI, you complete me”

Also, the Zavvi brand is green and black like a 80s computer monitor with blinking cursors. For God’s sake Zavvi management team, everything was RED AND YELLOW before. We liked RED AND YELLOW. It was part of every Londoner’s visual landscape, which had been drilled into us over the years. Come on guys, what were you thinking at that marketing meeting? Let me guess, a clean break with the Virgin brand, now that you’re all going to buy Dickie out? I can hear his sniggers from here.

The lovely guy who sold me a three-time discounted pound DVD box set in Fulham this week (plus 10% on top, I shit you not), told me that you will not even tell your staff what their last day is, reserving the right for the morning of closure. Come on, the morning of closure? Isn’t that too early? Why don’t you all just SMS the poor bastards when they go home from work:

U R FIRED FRM LST  NGHT. CALL NOW 0800800800 2 WIN DVD FROM ZAVVI. CALLS CHARGED AT 5 POUND / MIN

When things start to look like this, its time go home

If you have had the sense to not live in London you will no doubt be still familiar with Piccadilly Circus. It’s as iconic as Big Ben. The south west corner of Piccadilly Circus has always featured a large RED AND YELLOW record megastore. Not, I enthuse, green and black.

In this corner of no-longer-prime British real estate, I spent many happy hours learning about music and film. As a flagship store Tower Records, and later Virgin, was always representative of the best and latest in pop culture. During my six years working in a Soho brothel (just checking that you’re still with me), it was the perfect place to kill ten minutes before boarding the 22 bus back home.

Tower Records was first pointed out to me by my father, who in turn first discovered it on a business trip to London, as many do. The size and variety of merchandise on offer at the time was astounding and bewildering, and it was there where I first headed on my first giddy and wide eyed visit to London, aged thirteen. Tower Records sold London to me. A city with a record store that big had to be a fantastic place to live in.

 This record super megastore in one of the coolest bits of London, has been a part of me for a long time, and this part died forever when I heard the following:

Its to be replaced by a Primark store.

Good bye Big Record Store. Companion of my youth. I will miss you and come in to buy cardigans instead.

I’m still reeling from this experience, and havemany thoughts and emotions to deal with. A part of me is slightly flattered and excited, but another is feeling very uncomfortable. “No publicity is bad publicity ” the old saying goes, but I’m not so sure.

I’m sort of fluctuating between wondering if I’ve done something wrong and then immediately realising that I haven’t.

You see, last night, at my “leaving do” it was gently pointed out to me that Crunched has now been read by most of my ex colleagues and ex bosses, inspiring a broad range of reactions. Here are some choice first night reviews:
 

“Doesn’t he have anything better to do”? (occasionally)

“It could be worse”

“It could be better”

“It’s not funny. It’s really not funny” (beg to differ)

“Attention seeking tosser. He should think about his family and his next employer” (just exactly what are you doing on my site surfing from work, sunshine?)

“What is he on?” (chamomile tea and adrenaline, mostly)
 

Look mummy, the fat bald man is showing off on the Internet.

By the sounds of it, Crunched has provoked a diverse range of opinions and already taken up far more valuable company time than is probably advisable. I wish I had achieved this collective mind share over the last year, maybe things could have worked out differently, or maybe not.

Crunched is not intended as a vendetta vehicle in any shape or form. Who do you think I am, Tony Soprano?

This blog, like most blogs, is a personal forum, a digital soap box. It’s my bit of the internet, and you have elected to come on to it. It was suggested to me last night that I should restrict access, that it should be all password protected. I’m not going to do this, it’s against the blogging spirit and I am not going to voluntarily reduce my traffic. And what’s more I have nothing to hide.

Think about it. It is now 2009 and you have the capacity to talk to the whole world from your living room. Almost for free. It you’re not doing this sort of thing too, you are missing out. Try it you will like it.

I’m just a beginner, trying out this new medium, much like someone learning the piano or the guitar. Like a musical instrument, a blogis a vehicle for creativity and self expression. In inexperienced or unskilled hands it sounds like shit. Sometimes it will be repetitive and tedious. But other times just there will be a bit which sounds great.

Mostly, however, it will probably just annoy the neighbours.

I’m now knocking on the proverbial neighbours door to say that Crunched is not out to make a fool of anyone or to hurt anyone’s feelings and that I’ve taken out two bits of the blog. Is the harm done? That’s up to you. Hope not.

I’m a clumsy person. A clumsy man. All my life I have knocked things over when I move. My physical movements are as far from a ballerina’s as can be conceived. Graceful movement is beyond me. When God passed out Coordination I was the last in the line (“sorry mate we’ve run out of Coordination, will you have some Caustic Wit instead?”). I recognize this and can see the funny side of it. It is funny, but have you thought that maybe, just maybe, after all these years this has been pointed out quite a few times and I just may be a bit sensitive about it?

Mr Clumsy, you call me affectionately. I’vegot the book with all your signatures on it. You could also call me Mr Unemployed, Mr Crunch or Mr P45. These are all also genuinely funny variations on the theme to be perhaps explored in a later blog entry.

So if I can take a joke, why can’t you?

Crunched is not a “revenge” blog. Give me a break. I don’t do “revenge” even if this situation called for it. This is not  www.IamadisgruntledemployeeandIwanttokilleveryone.com (the URL does not exist so don’t bother clicking).

Life is too short for pettiness of that sort and I have a job to find.

If I this situation called for, or indeed I was immature enough to need vengeance in any shape or form, I would have written a savoury Spanish swear word like “cojones” on your lawn using sea salt. THAT would be visible on your garden for the next 50 years and would look fantastic on Google Maps.

Everyone involved, and I mean everyone, has been very decent and supportive to me all the way through this situation, and I have said as much to their faces. Everything I had to say that counts for anything has been said in person. One to one. I’m not out to hurt anyone’s feelings or disrespect anyone. I hope we can all remain friends. Please get in touch if you want to discuss.

I think that did a good job for you, which you recognized.  I spent two and half years travelling on a weekly basis to our client. My family life was rearranged to cope with this which I did both cheerfully and gratefully. I expressed interest in your company and in more internal opportunities and everyone made the right noises and I recognize that the situation I am in is not anyone’s fault.

But you know what, I can’t help being disappointed that suddenly I don’t have a job or income anymore in the middle of a global crisis, and that I wake up at 5.30 most days because I can’t sleep any more due to tension. It doesn’t really feel very fair, but hey that’s life. Please don’t tell me how to feel or how I should process it.

This is a private blog about a very tough and introspective time in my life. With a dose of humour and a pinch of salt, which is how I have chosen to approach the situation. If you don’t like what you read here, then please don’t com here. This is my bit of the internet and most certainly not a Virgin or BA type Facebookemployee rant. There are no 50K media deals in the pipeline with The Sun (“My Facebook Hell”) at stake or a sinister agenda to promote. There is nothing you need to be concerned about. This blog is about me.

Crunched is a tongue-in-cheek, hopefully high-satire account of the 2009 Credit Crunch in London, as experienced  by one bemused bald job hunter and experienced Londoner, who doesn’t exactly understand how it all happened but will go with the flow for now.

Now get back to work.

Peace.

Apparently NASA has found methane in Mars’ atmosphere. Methane as you may know is created by cows farting and belching after a hard’s day grazing and is a key factor driving climate change. One implication is that you should probably not eat McDonald’s burgers. This is not because they taste like a tramps shoe, which they do, (I’m  a BK man and a hypocrite), but because in order to keep up the global demand for burgers many methane-generating cows are required.

"Wasn't me."

In the 70s we all knew that alien civilizations would have been found by today. In “The Year 2000″ everyone would have at least one extraterrestrial (sorry that’s very un-PC I meant to say Equally Accepted Universal Life-form ) on speed dial and you would send your children on an exchange trip over the summer holidays to learn Venusian, which they would do if they managed to return to Earth without get eaten by the exchange family.

As it turns out, after years of research by the best eggheads on the planet, after space exploration programme costing trillions of dollars, after countless books, films and TV shows which have stretched our imagination and made us dream and made Mr Spielberg a very rich man, it transpires that Mars may be inhabited only by a bunch of bacteria.

Yes, bacteria. The things you brush off your teeth.

Sorry but I can’t get excited about this. I was promised an advanced civilization which would give humanity hope and a new purpose and direction. No quantum leap in technological innovation. No hyperspace, no teleports, for God’s sake.

The entire population of Mars can be anihilitated with a bottle of Mr. Muscle

It turns out that Earth is a more advanced civilization than Mars. They are still totally protozoic up there, probably billions of years behind us in evolutionary terms and they have a long way to before they can even think about saying “Beep, beep, we come in peace”.

Please kill me.

Miguel's second head had an irritating habit of interrupting him mid-point

 This week I lost my job (where did you see it last? I think I had it last night when I came back from the office,  but this morning its gone. Oh.)

Now, now a 38 years old, bald, father of two should be taking this a tad more seriously.

Don’t you think?

After all, where is the money going to come from now? Losing your job,at this time, in this particular year, is the worst move you could possible make this side of the Millennium. The economic environment is truly apocalyptic. Its raining bankers (hallelujah!) and people are being made redundant faster than you can say collateralized debt obligation.

Undoubtedly there are many people in the same boat. After all, every single day we wake up in the dark and cold London morning to new announcements of fresh redundancies being made across every single sector. Retail, Banking, Advertising. Manufacturing. Recruitment.

Ah. Recruitment. I met a headhunter just before Xmas. We had a great meeting. This guy is a really a pro, I was thinking. He knows everyone. It won’t be long before something turns up. We agreed to catch up in the New Year, but guess what. Yup. Bye bye Mr. Headhunter. D’oh!

I take no solace in the fact that it is a bad market place.  You can rationalise it all until the Tories win the next elections. I don’t care how many million are unemployed (it it still way lower than the early 90s). Only fools take comfort in the malaise of the populace.

Losing your job is shit, especially when your conscience is clear, your clients love you (although it transpires that they are no longer prepared to pay for your services) and you just got a large pay rise in summer in reflection of your abilities and increased value to the business.

You know its not personal. You intend to be professional and mature about it as befits someone with your experience. After all, its not you. Its just business. 

Fucksocks.