It was lunchtime on Sunday and Dr Susan Swings and I were in the Ramblers’ Retreat, a pub high up on the Berkshire Downs. The place was busy with outdoor types either preparing themselves for, or recovering from, a hearty walk along the Ridgeway.

Dr Swings and I sat close together on a high-backed wooden bench. After another week at her investment bank, Floggit Burnhem, spent wrestling with the credit crunch and the gyrations of the stock market, Dr Swings looked tired.

Away from the marble halls of Canary Wharf and the testosterone-filled trading rooms, and wearing not her customary crisp business suit but some old jeans and a jumper, Dr Swings looked unusually vulnerable. Her eyes lacked the fire of conviction. The tone of her voice was lack-lustre. There was a rare gentleness about her and as the autumn sun slanted through the window and, via a reflection off the hanging horse-brasses, cast a golden glow upon her skin, I asked myself how it was that she had remained single for so long…

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Government spreads the blame for the credit crunch

My reverie was interrupted by a familiar voice. ‘I have never been so insulted!’ it said with emphasis. It was Professor Roy Roundabout who, having unwound a long purple and white striped scarf from around his neck and flung it at the hat-stand, came to join us.

Dr Swings and I looked at each other. ‘Well, I know the landlord can be a little over-familiar…’, I began, but the Professor snapped me shut.

‘No, No!’ he said impatiently.’ I don’t mean this place! I am talking about this credit crunch. I mean as I drove here I heard, on my car radio, a government minister blaming all of us for the problem! He said that we have all been guilty of borrowing too much and running up foolish debts. Well I for one have never run up a debt, and I don’t for a moment like the idea of my money being used to bale out those who have!’

He paused to raise his pint glass to his lips, allowing Dr Swings to respond.

‘You mean you have never had a mortgage?’ she asked.

‘No, I certainly have not,’ said the Professor emphatically.

‘But then,’ I said in a sly voice, ‘you have always lived in a flat owned by Chadlington College, haven’t you?’

The Professor was forced to admit that this was true, and glancing at Dr Swings to make sure she had enjoyed this winning repartee, I was rewarded with an appreciative smile.

Dumbing down for the news

‘But still,’ the Professor resumed, ‘where I live is beside the point. We are being treated like idiots and the media,’ – he shot an accusing glance in my direction – ‘is dumbing down even faster than the politicians. For instance, did you see the Ten O’Clock News on Thursday?’

‘Ten o’clock?’ said Dr Swings. ‘I wish! I had not left the office by then.’

I gave her arm a sympathetic pat, and she released a wistful smile.

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‘Well then, let me explain,’ said the Professor. ‘The subject was the rate of inflation. The BBC’s economics editor was in a glass-walled lift. As he spoke of the rise of inflation the lift ascended. Then as he explained that inflation is at its peak the lift stopped. And then as he predicted that inflation was about to start falling – yes, you’ve guessed it! – the lift started to go down! Have you ever seen anything so infantile as that? Can nobody understand words any longer, or must they always be accompanied by some sort of nursery school imagery?’

‘I agree!’ said Dr Swings. Her voice was brighter and this time I allowed my hand to linger upon her arm for a moment longer as, pretending not to notice, she gazed at our companion.

‘But what really gets me’, said the Professor, ‘is Gordon Brown. I mean I find it quite extraordinary that having delivered this country into the biggest financial mess seen in decades his popularity has actually gone up. I have said before that the Conservatives should never have sided with the Government. They should be nailing Brown now like never before.’ He made a funny gesture with his hands, as if wringing dirty water out of a wet cloth, and Dr Swings looked up at me and smiled.

Gordon Brown’s reckless borrowing binge

‘I mean the stuff that Brown comes out with is quite absurd.’ The Professor paused for lubrication and drained his glass. ‘Every time he opens his mouth – except in that curious way he has of dropping his lower jaw like a fish – he utters the phrase “world economic crisis that started in America”. The crisis may have started there but it could just as easily have started here. Brown has presided over a reckless and unregulated borrowing binge and that, and not anything that happened in the good old US of A, is why we are in a hole.’

I started as if to speak, but the Professor was in full flow.

‘And another thing!’ he cried, his vehemence by now attracting the attention of the couple on the next table. ‘How Brown has the nerve to criticise the banks for “the age or irresponsibility” when as Chancellor he let the public finances get completely out of control is just… breath-taking. He certainly has got brass neck, I’ll give him that. I need another drink. Let me get them in.’

There was a pause. For a moment Dr Swings was looking dreamy. She was staring into the middle distance, but her thoughts were clearly not on the waitress busily polishing glasses behind the bar or the real ale drinkers standing four square in the middle of the room.

The Professor went to the bar and, slowly, Dr Swings turned and her look lingered upon me. She put her soft lips close to my ear and, ready for this moment to change my life, I prepared some suitably James Bond-like rejoinders to her entreaties.

‘I have never seen Roy in this mood before,’ she whispered, ‘So forthright. So… passionate. So… manly. Quite my sort of guy…’

Tom Bulford
for The Penny Sleuth

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