Credit Crunch

I recently took a guided tour of a vineyard and cellars in Blois, France, that was completely in French. Being a non-French speaker it meant that I understood about 0.2% of what was going on, and most of what I did understand was gained from a man pointing at stacks of bottles of wine and giving informative looks.

Yet I still understand more about Loire Valley vineyardary than I do about the credit crunch. It all just seems to be a sucession of large numbers which, to my mind, is similar in both content and meaning as listening to cricket scores or the shipping forecast.

Apparently though, George Bush has sorted it all out. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has that great sense of foreboding whenever Dubya is called upon to sort something out. It’s rather like being Lois Lane and calling for Superman. Except in this case, Superman’s got the lightning reactions of an octagenerian after 6 mugs of Sherry and a mince pie, and has all the stage presence of a comprehensive school geography teacher with an adenoid problem.

$700 Billion dollars seems like a lot, but I did have a back-up plan if it all went wrong. I get at least 3 offers of credit cards and pre-approved loans a week, and I’d calculated if all the residents of Milton Keynes had pooled together their junk mail offers of cash we could have raised the money within a month. I was preparing a Facebook group to mobilise the masses just in case.

I was also considering emailing Dubya and suggesting he give Carol Vorderman a call. Not for her number-crunching skills, but because I’m sure she’d have helped the US Financial Market consolidate their debts into one easy monthly payment with jut one hassle-free phone call and a quick chat about the weather.

Of course, those of us without a House of Representatives to look after our financial hiccups will find it harder to save our pennies. During the war of course, everyone was told to dig for victory, but nowadays everyone lives on a Barrett estate where if you plant anything but a pink Hydranger in the front garden, the residents committee will blackball you from the Golf Club and paint your kittens green.

You also need new ways to save money on heating bills. You can’t burn coal anymore because it will give polar bears asthma attacks. You can’t roll up newspaper to block drafts around doors and windows because then you can’t recycle it, and if you put paper in a wheely bin these days your local council will print your embarassing holiday photographs on advertising billboards and ban the next three generations of your family from using the public swimming baths.

Don’t go thinking you can save money on petrol either. Even if you can find a route where the local Highways department hasn’t doubled the distance you travel by putting in a slalom of pedestrian islands and one-way systems, there’ll be a sleeping policeman every 100 yards meaning you’ll be braking and accelerating like a yo-yo.

You can cut down on foreign holidays. The only problem then is that you have to holiday in the UK. This is okay, except you’ll have to try and drive there, and when you do arrive there’ll be a force-four gale blowing through your room because your host can’t use newspapers or coal to keep the place warm.

Here’s a better idea. Don’t put your money in the bank, save it up at home – it’s much safer anyway. You can scrunch it up and use it to block up any draughts, and the council will be happy your recycling enough. If you save enough you can build money castles and money dens to keep the kids happy so you don;t have to go on holiday. Plus, when every currency except the Transilvanian Drachma is worthless, you’ll be able to use it to fuel your fire without the polar bears developing the slightest hint of bronchitis.