Friday, January 25, 2008 :
Black Monday
Now Monday 21 January this year was not only Black because it was a) commonly held to be the most depressing day of the year in any case; b) the day upon which I returned to the office with major jet lag after a month off having a great time, but also because c) the worst European stock market crash since 2001 took place. It also turns out that it was the day on which a bank had to start unloading a €30bn long position of OTM European equity futures, having discovered a major fraud on the Friday. How unlucky is that! Or are the two events not unconnected…?
Also, am I the only one who thinks that it sits rather ill in the mouths of senior members of a bank in such circumstances to describe the person who had entered the bank into that €30bn position apparently without anyone at the bank noticing in such patronising terms as “he was not one of our stars” and he was “without particular genius”.
Thursday, January 24, 2008 :
Inflation news
“Mervyn King indicated today* that a 9.5% rise in the base rate of interest to 15% is “almost certain” to be imposed next month when the Bank of England’s MPC meets to discuss the issue. His comments arise after a radical change in the way inflation is measured has revealed that inflationary pressures in the economy are much worse than previously thought. The substitution of the unwieldy “CPI” method with the much more responsive “price of a Twix in tucola’s office vending machines” method shows that, far from running at around 2.5% as previously thought by the Government, inflation in 2007 was in fact 28.6%”.
* not really
Labels: economics
Internet Radio
While I was out in the US for the wedding, a friend who lives out there introduced me to a very cool website, which had previously passed me by, although I now think I recall having read about the site, its founder Tim Westergren and problems with the US copyright authorities on Doc Searls. Pandora.com is a website that allows you to play a stream of music over the internet, which you can “teach” so that it plays a programme of songs that appeal to your taste. The way it does so is by having laboriously catalogued all of the available tracks according to their characteristics and playing songs which have similar characteristics to songs or artists in relation to which you have expressed approval when “seeding” your “station”. You then have the opportunity to approve, deprecate or remain neutral about each song played by the website, further guiding it in the desired direction. Basically, you end up with an internet radio station where the “DJ” only plays stuff you like.
How gutted was I, therefore, to arrive back in the UK to find that as from January 2008, access to the website has been restricted to those in the United States due to international licensing restrictions. We need this in the UK. Come on, the PRS, etc, give them a licence.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008 :
I’ve been away for a month getting married and going on honeymoon. Both were fantastic. Many thanks to all those who attended and helped make the wedding day so special. Thanks also to our friends at Fly By Night djs in Huntington Beach: our DJ Duane did a great job at the reception.
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