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A first, or a 14th?
Feb. 14th, 2009 08:12 pmPossibly something of a record in my memory, but it looks as if I shall be spending a Saturday at home without playing any poker. The kitchen is now fully plastered, but the wall units are not up, so I have a two-day window when painting the walls will be much easier than it will be when the kitchen units are installed. So, I woke up this morning, and cracked on. Undercoats successfully applied, first coat of one wall successfully applied, paint for other three walls bought. tiles chosen (although I walked up there, so I didn't buy them because they were too heavy. Tmw, more paint to buy, more painting to do, but I would like to get some pkr in as well. One of those classic "not enough hours in the day".
I idly fired up a couple of sites, but it seemed clear that only the saddos of the saddos play online poker of the evening of Saturday 14th February. While I would happily include myself in that bunch, it was obvious from the small sizes of the pots that there were no casual players present -- just a bunch of hacks trying to work off bonuses. Perhaps I'll try to have another nap.
I'm now half-way through the last series of The Wire, still brilliant.
Yesterday evening's numbers on Lloyds Bank, and this morning's interview with Ken Clarke on Radio 4, sent me googling for my own entries on this matter back in the day when the government was encouraging the takeover and Lloyds was saying that it was a good idea.
I half-recall writing at the time that I thought that Lloyds would walk away from the deal when it became clear how dire were the straits that HBoS had rowed itself into (as it happens, it turns out that the straits were twice as dire as even that). Lloyd's did not walk away, perhaps through some sense of honour -- for which, in that case, many congratulations, although I doubt I would feel that way if I were a shareholder. Now it's clear that HBoS's problems stemmed not from subprime, but through dreadful loans in the commercial sector.
Another interesting snippet in the Lloyds report (posting, btw, a £10bn writedown on this HBoS sludge) was that part of the loss was because of Lloyds' own more conservative accounting rules -- which is just about a bullet in the back of the head of ex-HBoS head Andy Hornby. Kind of "well, we've really looked at these loans — which, to our eternal regret, we didn't when the purchase of HBoS went through — and they look to us to be a pile of shite."
Most of the loans were funding of equity buyouts -- collections of individuals borrow cash to buy company with promises of cost-savings etc. The problem was, savings aren't as easy as they used to be. What was a money spinner in 2002, wasn't in 2006. HBoS failed to spot this.
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I idly fired up a couple of sites, but it seemed clear that only the saddos of the saddos play online poker of the evening of Saturday 14th February. While I would happily include myself in that bunch, it was obvious from the small sizes of the pots that there were no casual players present -- just a bunch of hacks trying to work off bonuses. Perhaps I'll try to have another nap.
I'm now half-way through the last series of The Wire, still brilliant.
Yesterday evening's numbers on Lloyds Bank, and this morning's interview with Ken Clarke on Radio 4, sent me googling for my own entries on this matter back in the day when the government was encouraging the takeover and Lloyds was saying that it was a good idea.
I half-recall writing at the time that I thought that Lloyds would walk away from the deal when it became clear how dire were the straits that HBoS had rowed itself into (as it happens, it turns out that the straits were twice as dire as even that). Lloyd's did not walk away, perhaps through some sense of honour -- for which, in that case, many congratulations, although I doubt I would feel that way if I were a shareholder. Now it's clear that HBoS's problems stemmed not from subprime, but through dreadful loans in the commercial sector.
Another interesting snippet in the Lloyds report (posting, btw, a £10bn writedown on this HBoS sludge) was that part of the loss was because of Lloyds' own more conservative accounting rules -- which is just about a bullet in the back of the head of ex-HBoS head Andy Hornby. Kind of "well, we've really looked at these loans — which, to our eternal regret, we didn't when the purchase of HBoS went through — and they look to us to be a pile of shite."
Most of the loans were funding of equity buyouts -- collections of individuals borrow cash to buy company with promises of cost-savings etc. The problem was, savings aren't as easy as they used to be. What was a money spinner in 2002, wasn't in 2006. HBoS failed to spot this.
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