3 posts tagged “northern rock”

I'm presently drinking to forget, but here's some memories of 2007.

Chav 4 kicked the year off with Celebrity Big Brother. More than any UN league table, a nation in decline was clearly demonstrated by the contrast between Shilpa Shetty and the coven of fishwives that was Jade, Danielle and Jo. Chav 4 continued to plumb new depths as the year progressed: inexplicably recommissioning IT Crowd; inflicting Skins on a terrestrial audience; and a relentless bilge torrent of proleshame reality TV (predominantly fronted by that witch, who's not a Doctor, Gillian McKeith).

2007 could well go down as year the music died. I saw more live music than ever: in Camden, Derby, Leicester, Nottingham, Shoreditch, Brighton, Leeds and Manchester. But saw less that made the cut. In February Oasis got a Brit. We chose to ignore it at the time, but at our cost. This validation of Blokepop was directly responsible for encouraging The Twang and Reverend and the Makers to give up their jobs on the bins and try music. May saw our worst Eurovision entry ever, the shameful Scooch. A shame exacerbated when, to a man, our nation's windbags took up their phones and dialled radio shows to declare that "it's...you know political innit...that Eurovision...that voting, like". As if recycling someone else's hot air was the same as having an opinion. Incidentally, the only two countries to vote for Scooch were Malta and Ireland, so maybe Demented Tunbridge Wells had a point.

In May a nation prayed for little Maddie, in an outpouring of wallowing sentiment that echoed Diana. Newspaper editors have been keeping their fingers crossed ever since. Rumours that Gerry McCann is negotiating a six figure deal with HarperCollins/Regan Books are unconfirmed.

June saw Dear Leader leave the stage. And it was literally apres moi le deluge come July, when it wasn't just the rain that was pissing. And metaphorically, in September when the wheels fell off the economic miracle at Northern Rock. But, there is a silver lining to the impending housing crash, at least Buy to Let landlords and estate agents are going to get it first.

2007 was also a year of bad sex. The excruciating Secret Diary of a Call Girl. TV adverts for sex toys, encouraging viewers of ITV to copulate ((shudders)). NUTS TV launched. And Manchester United Footballers picking up the ingredients for their Christmas roast amongst the shopgirls of Selfridges and Harvey Nicks.

And 2007 continued the unstoppable rise of the idiots. With Chris Moyles and his fellow spokesmorons hosing twatswill down the grateful gullets of slack-jawed proles. And the country deifying celebrities of such miniscule talent we're going to have to apply for an extension on the alphabet just to categorise them.

If you had a time machine, which year would you travel to and why?
Submitted by Michelle.

Feb 07 and buy a few million in Northern Rock shares, short

"No, but you . . . you . . . you're thinking of this place all wrong. As if I had the money back in a safe. The money's not here. Your money's in Joe's house .. . . right next to yours. And in the Kennedy house, and Mrs. Macklin's house, and a hundred others. Why, you're lending them the money to build, and then, they're going to pay it back to you as best they can. Now what are you going to do? Foreclose on them?"

Is not the impassioned speech any North Rock Bank Manager is going to be making to the hordes. 10 years ago maybe, when Northern Rock was undertaking the dull, but worthy, task of putting Geordies in homes. But not now.

Northern Rock is the most telegraphed crash since BCCI. They've caught a break by being able to blame it on the US situation, but in reality their underlying business model was fucked. They were going to fail anyway.

So Northern Rock's gone. The Directors will parachute out with their payoffs, and the new owners will slash the workforce. But then the fun's really going to start. A good portion of Northern Rock's £100bn mortgage book was sold at 125% LTV and up to 6 time salary. When these fixed rate deals mature over the next couple of years, the borrowers will be stuck on punitive SVR rates; 'cause no other lender is going to touch the risk. Stand by for our own little 'sub prime' crash in the UK.

This was a wholly expected, and preventable failure. The public should be asking themselves what are they paying the Financial Services Authority for?