Cardboard Spaceship

Signing Off from the Spaceship

Well, the end of the Attack of Lumps was sadly not the end.  I now have recurrent diffuse B-Cell Lymphoma, and that's going to be a bitch to treat. 

I will get another four rounds of very heavy chemo, then they will basically do a bone marrow transplant with my own cells.

I am more likely to live than not, but it is going to be rather draining, and so after six jolly years of warbling nonsense in this blog, I am signing off. 

Thanks for being a reader, and I hope that I managed to make a few people smile. 

 

Large European Bank Nearly Failed Last Night

The news just keeps getting uglier and uglier.

From Forbes, via Zero Hedge: 

"It appears that a big European bank got close to failure last night.  European banks, especially French banks, rely heavily on funding in the wholesale money markets.  It appears that a major bank was having difficulty funding its immediate liquidity needs.

The cavalry was called in and has come to the successful rescue. 

The Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan, the Swiss National Bank, and the Bank of Canada in a coordinated action moved to provide liquidity to the global financial system."

So they saved it last night, and tomorrow, when everyone begins to know who is in trouble?  If the bank is bust, only central banks propping it up, then it is a dead bank walking, and we will find out soon enough who it is.  Then we'll see what's left standing afterwards.

Euro Again

Well, I guess I was kinda hoping that there would be some kind of Deus ex Machina that might pull us out of the situation, but it's looking less and less likely.  Two quotes both from the gold ole' Torygraph, in this article and its counterpart from Jeremy Warner. 

Warner first:

"Contingency planning is in progress throughout Europe. From the UK Treasury on Whitehall to the architectural monstrosity of the Bundesbank in Frankfurt, everyone is desperately trying to figure out precisely how bad the consequences might be. What they are preparing for is the biggest mass default in history. There's no orderly way of doing this. European finance and trade is too far integrated to allow for an easy unwinding of contracts. It's going to be anarchy."

Brogan then chips in:

"The Economist, with its cover of a euro coming down in flames, asks 'Is this really the end? and answers that, basically, yes it is. A senior minister explained to me a few days ago that contingency planning is now well underway, and takes in both preparations at home for a shock on the banks and work with consulates and embassies abroad, specifically in the eurozone, to anticipate social and banking disruption when it all goes wrong. The betting in Team Dave seems to be that the game is as good as up for the single currency. "It's in our interests that they keep playing for time because that gives us more time to prepare," the minister told me."

This is not going to be fun folks.  We paid a lot for the ticket, and the show is no good.

Summary of 2011 for Me.

Well, the good ole Daily Mash have done it again.  I have my sumary comment for this year courtesy of Psychic Bob, their horoscope master.

"Aquarius (20 JAN-19 FEB)
As 2011 draws to a close, you look back on the preceding 11 months and wonder whether 2010 told this year that you had bareback loveplay with its mother."

Actually, I'm Leo, but this sums it up for me.  As to astrology, I think that the Punch cartoon from the 1980's capures the essence.  There's a middle aged chap staring at the television, which is obviously running the news, as the newscaster says:

”The practice of astrology took a major step toward achieving credibility today when, as predicted, everyone born under the sign of Scorpio was run over by an egg lorry”.

Quite.

Euro WTF?

I keep on wanting to write something about the Euro crisis, but as soon as I begin to think I have an understanding of the current situation, it transmogrifies in front of my astonished eyes...

First we get the EFSF supersized, but with nothing in it. 

Then G-Pap says we need a referendum, without evening mentioning it to his cabinet members, which is already surreal.

Italian bond yields go bananas.

Sarko and Merkel go ballistic.

G-Pap resigns, apparently, then we have a Greek national unity government.  Likely led by an ECB apparatchik.

Sarko and Merkel now say Greece has to shape up, or they will throw it out of the Euro, and the EU!

Sometime, somehow this had to come to decision point, but man, this an exercise in anti-crisis management.

I used to joke, "enjoy the show, you paid a lot for the ticket."  I ain't enjoying the show, folks. 

Turkey Holiday

We went to the Mediterranean for a holiday, at the Club Med Palmiye, which was brilliant.  Club Med is not cheap, but you go there and there is huge range of activity, and goings on, which you basically get as part of the package, and all food drink, etc. is also in the agreement, so you can really just relax.  We also had several friends that go there for the Geneva school holidays, so we had other people to play with.  In fact, judging by the travel schedule on the notice board, most of Geneva seemed to have the same idea.

Here is a picture of the Spaceship crew.  (Wim the Most Intelligent Member of the Crew went for a nice autumn break with his friend Patch, who is one of our neighbours.)

The location was lovely, and the weather good.

The Smallest Space Cadet of them All did his PADI Open Water certificate.

Here seen looking at the local fauna - tickely, apparently.

And here after finishing the diving.

I couldn't dive, but we did manage some snorkelling.

As you can see, I have hair and eyebrows again, and I am starting to feel much more like myself, and the holiday certainly helped. 

I am now back to work, at least slowly to begin with, and so the holiday was an excellent close the history of the Attack of Lumps. 

Well, Europe...

Hmm.  Been watching the Euro rescue.  Waiting for the rescue.

MiGosh.  You would be hard pressed to see a more complex comedic clusterfuck if you tried, but...

It's about everything in financial stability, even a functioning monetary system, but no-one seems to have any concrete plans anymore.

I am reminded of John Law, the Scottish man from Lauriston, who sank the French economy, more or less single handed.  I find this resonant for many reasons.

If it looks too good to be true, wouldn't it good to assume it is?  AAA interest rates for an economy that did not have it before?

We'll see, I hope that it does not collapse before we get back!

At least we have have bloody wonderful Autumn weather, hoping you have had the same...

Turkey, and it's not even Christmas...

Just been chilling here in the Spaceship, getting better, and relaxing. 

Reading Neal Stephenson's Readme.  Everything he does is a kind of bonkers stream of consciousness, but I do like his stuff. 

Tomorrow we go to Turkey for a week of much needed family holiday before we all go back to work and try and finish off a bloody busy, and somewhat surprising, 2011.

See you on the other side of a bit of sea and sand.  Enjoy.

Excellent New Word from Labour Spinmeister

RIM have had the Blackberry service down in EMEA for the last three or four days, which is a disaster for a company that is so central to mobile comms.  Given that their products are pretty lacklustre right now, the one thing that everyone always said was "well, at least e-mail works."

Best comment of the stressed yuppie classes came from former Labour spinmeister Alastair Campbell who tweeted:

"day 3 of blackberry blackout. Some free advice. Explain while you fix. Apologise when you have. Recompense after. handling so far woefuk."

Woeful was the intended word, one assumes, but the type really sums it up nicely, a woefuk of a situation.

Are RIM and Nolkia in competition for the Digital Equipment Corporation Memorial award for taking brilliant companies and products, and pissing it up against the fence?

Euro Show Continues...

Man, if you had to do a text book case of how to mishandle a complex and escalating situation, you could not do a more mangled and screwed up job than the vast numbers of people who all seem to have conflicting roles in the demise or whatever happens next to the Euro.

Greece will default, it's a question of how long, and how much.  When it does the big banks go down.  Dexia is looking wobbly already, SocGen and BNPP have also been the subject of intense speculation, and at least some German lenders would be very exposed.  Short question is who gets screwed?  The PIIGS by being forced into austerity and deflation, or the bank countries, notably Germany and France?

None of it bodes well for the overall popularity of the Euro experiment.