On Shylock, Orgies and The Pre Budget Report.

The pound of flesh which I demand of him is deerely bought, 'tis mine, and I will have it.

According to the UN Human development report the country in 2006 that had the highest debt ratio was Kazakhstan with 21.6%

Iceland was at 0%

Yet Icelandic banks, or their shuddering husks, today owe 14 times their national gross domestic product. (A joke going around financial circles - “what is the capital of Iceland?” “Four Euros”.)

That’s some spree.

Now admittedly it's the banks and not the country that went spendy crazy, but the banks are answerable to the law, aren't they? Did Mr. Haarde (go ask him for your money back), the ever so unpopular Icelandic PM, think it ok to put 4000 hotels on the Old Kent Road?

What would Shylock ask of these guys? Is there enough flesh in Iceland? 300,000 people and some fish might not do it.

He’d probably have to take all their hummers and West Ham just to cover the vig.

How can everyone owe everyone money?

Someone had to have some to give out at the start of it; otherwise there would be nowhere to send the boys around to.

What the banks have been sheepishly owning up to doing these last 10 years is a bit like finding out that your work colleagues have been having a daily, disgusting Sade-like orgy in the work canteen, (with pooh and blood and everything), in stead of the advertised tai- chi. Like in the Marquis’ (unspeakably shit) books the bad guys don’t always go to prison either.

So it was good to see the British Chancellor up in his best suit today selling the “lets spend our way out of this mess” solution.

Can you have deja-vu in the middle of seeing the thing that you think you have seen already.

That would be like some horrible vicious circle, or something.