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BLADE IS MY BANKER.
It is, undoubtedly, big news that a consortium of major central banks, including the Federal Reserve, have joined together to inject an emergency $100 billion into the international money markets in order to prevent the credit crisis from wrecking the global economy. It's a welcome move, and evidence of how dangerous the current moment really is. But my commentary on it will be entirely frivolous. Go to The Guardian and check out the picture they use to illustrate the Bank of England's involvement. It's a shot of the bank building itself and, frankly, I'm not it's good to be so reliant on an institution that clearly leads a double life as a cozy home for the world's vampiric hordes.
And, because this is tangentially related, here's the opening scene to Blade. Not safe for workplaces that aren't awesome.
COMMENTS (10)
yes, the photograph looks like a scene from "the golden compass."
the evil and greedy spirits who wrought this, resemble the gargoyles that seem to have leaped off of the buildings and come to life.
www.stonecarver.com
for an artful gallery of gargoyles.
Posted by: jacqueline | December 13, 2007 12:15 PM
Once again, life imitates The Day Today:
"MORRIS: The Bank of England is in chaos after the discovery that the pound has been stolen. As the news broke, trading rooms were plunged into chaos, even seasoned campaigners known for grace under pressure being reduced to squawking the day's panicked cry, "What's happening?"
TRADER: What's happening?
MORRIS: The pound was stolen at 1.30 this afternoon by thieves dressed as cleaners. They drove a white Montego - helicopter police gave chase [footage of a speeding Montego crashing into another car] but despite the shunt the men escaped, making good with their legs across open ground. [A freeze frame shows two sets of animated footprints hurrying away from the crash] As City markets crashed and flew off, the government tried to stabilise the economy with an emergency currency based on the Queen's eggs, several thousand of which were removed from her ovaries in 1953 and held in reserve. This meant anyone mad enough to seize on the panic selling of dead pounds could become a dollar millionaire in less than an hour.
CREEPY-VOICED INTERVIEWER: How much money have you personally made today?
TRADER: About ten million.
CREEPY-VOICED INTERVIEWER: Wow.
MORRIS: Throughout the day, bank officials have refused to confirm the rumours that the pound was only vulnerable at all because they removed it to play with at lunchtime and forgot to put it back. Later tonight we'll be asking Malcolm Rifkind for his view, and asking him why he likes pulling the legs off live dogs and shooting foreign policemen."
Posted by: Ginger Yellow | December 13, 2007 12:43 PM
Nothing smells better than a 100 billion dollar welfare payment to the poor downtrodden fianncial institutions who, having packaged and sold these CMOs and SIVs, now face ruin holding paper (AAA-rated, no less) that are illiquid because nobody wants to peg a price for the pile of shit their are hoplding.
well, almost nobody. Welfare from Bernake and Paulson is just the ticket to get those poor hedge fund managers back on their feet.
Posted by: mrs. ibrahim al-jafaari | December 13, 2007 1:19 PM
Nothing smells better than a 100 billion dollar welfare payment to the poor downtrodden fianncial institutions who, having packaged and sold these CMOs and SIVs, now face ruin holding paper (AAA-rated, no less) that are illiquid because nobody wants to peg a price for the pile of shit they're holding.
well, almost nobody. Welfare from Bernake and Paulson is just the ticket to get those poor hedge fund managers back on their feet.
Posted by: mrs. ibrahim al-jafaari | December 13, 2007 1:20 PM
My workplace is pretty awesome. Not so awesome that I feel comfortable spending 7 minutes watching youtube...
Posted by: Punning Pundit | December 13, 2007 1:26 PM
I visited the BOE last summer. It's not imposing at all because it has lots of big buildings around it. It does have a pretty cool free museum and I enjoyed buying a big candy bar wrapped like a gold bar.
Not a vampire in sight. Just good cheap sightseeing.
Posted by: greg | December 13, 2007 1:58 PM
Does this mean Ezra is gonna get arrested for tax evasion?
Posted by: soulite | December 13, 2007 2:10 PM
My workplace is less than awesome, considering they block all blogspot addresses (thanks, Google Reader!), YouTube, flikr, facebook, and any site mentioning contraception.
Any guess where I work?!?!
Posted by: alli | December 13, 2007 2:15 PM
My workplace is awesome enough that vampire movie clips are perfectly safe, if not mandatory. When you develop games about vampires and werewolves, its almost a professional duty to watch them.
Posted by: John | December 13, 2007 3:22 PM
More normal pic here:
http://www.freewebs.com/mulctuarymoneymanagement/bank-of-england.jpg
I have walked by the BofE dozens of times and as greg says you really don't notice it because the area is so built up.
Posted by: Bloix | December 14, 2007 1:40 AM