Jeremy Clarkson -wtf

[juliany27]

I think that Rowan Atkinson got it right in one version of "The Devil" putting thieves, robbers, pillagers, bankers and politicians into one group in Hell.

 

[tscaptain]

For those that haven't seen this - Guess the odd one out:

Lord Stevenson, former chairman, HBOS Bank
Andy Hornby, former CEO, HBOS Bank
Sir Fred Goodwin, former CEO, RBS Bank
Sir Tom McKillup, former chairman, RBS Bank
John McFall MP, chairman, Treasury Select Committee
Alistair Darling, Chancellor of the Exchequer
Sir Terry Wogan, presenter of the BBC Radio 2 Breakfast Show














It's Terry Wogan, the only one with a banking qualification.

 

[adrian996]

I don't want to promote this book but Geraint Anderson has written one called Beer and Loathing in the Square Mile. It's basically a true story about how he got into banking and the sort of things that went on - up until he retired last year (at the age of 37). He basically was an annoying, class A drug-taking "modern" hippy who dropped out of college and didn't have a job. He openly admits in the book that his passage to becoming a banker in the city consisted of him having a brother (who did have a qualification) arranging for him to meet an influential figure (who remains nameless, as do all the other characters in the book) in an east-end boozer for an "interview". In short, his brother fed Anderson a load of info on banking the night before the interview with a view to him then being able to bull**it his way into a great career. Anderson states that he managed to forget 90% of what his brother had told him - but still got the job.

The rest is hysteria but basically he ended up getting promoted beyond his wildest dreams and developing a massive Peruvian Marching Dust habit which ran into thousands of pounds a week. One (of many) anecdotes of note is when he and his brokering team were sent on a long weekend "seminar" in Portugal which, over three days, resulted in about 1 hour of lectures - the rest being taken up by general partying. And golf. Anderson gets a bit of a conscience at this point and points out to the reader that this trip alone probably cost the investors of funds, etc linked to the bank in excess of £550,000. They even chartered a private jet to get there. And we all wonder what's happened to our MIPs, PEPs, pension funds, ISAs, etc.....?

I understand that ultimately this man must have been able to do his job to a certain standard - otherwise he would have been booted out. But, what I think is just so typical of where Britain has gone wrong these days is the fact that, following selling loads of copies of his book, Anderson has been paraded through radio and TV programs and been made to look like some sort of hero with a great tales to tell. It is a good tale - but it's all of us who have paid for his massive Champagne and gack habits of the last God knows how many years!

I think that we can conclude that Anderson may be a banker with some sort of conscience as it turned out that he was the guy behind the City Boy articles in the Evening Standard. But this only leads me to wonder what the other, possibly more ruthless ones are like...

They're now "worried" that the lack of bonuses will result in these guys looking to other countries for work. I think that would be just fine by me. Banking has to change now and they can bu**er off if it's not lucrative enough for them.