Melrose

There seems to be a growing consensus that this year’s recovery in the markets must be due for some kind of correction. This is partly due to a sense that all things come to an end and that, in this year in particular that truth must be more true than usual. But no one seems to understand the mechanics of the predicted market correction. The quantitative easing (QE) money that’s sloshing around isn’t going to be taken back by governments all of a sudden. The liquidity is going to be there but somehow there’s going to be a loss of confidence. It looks as if there’s going to be a sudden rush to liquidate investments and hold cash instead. This would mean a lot of people losing heavily, which would, of course, help reduce the risk of inflation. However, it would also negate one of the main purposes of the QE programme and confidence would take a lot longer to return than it did at the start of 2009.

Mr Darling and others have been warning about new asset bubbles forming but there don’t seem to have been a lot of clever ideas about how to get around the problem. One way would be to have another go at improving capital gains taxes so, for instance, these could be much more favourable to the small businesses and property owners than to other kinds of investors. To begin with this would only be a signal of the way the government wants to go and there would need to be a long-term commitment to fostering this kind of ‘main street’ business.

However, I’m not sure, with all this money sloshing around in the world’s financial centres, if there is a way of stopping some kind of 2nd correction. This puts investors in a bind. If the markets are going to correct, the logical thing is for every investor to pull back on all fronts – just the step that’s designed to make the problem as bad as it could be. The responsible, public-spirited investor would say ‘well, I always knew the recovery couldn’t be this good so I’ll take some losses on the chin.’ Not very likely, I think.

Some may take comfort from the fact that the stock markets are still lower than they were before the credit crunch. Equities in developed countries are down slightly more than 20 per cent since the beginning of 2008 even after the whopping increases of 2009. Unfortunately, there’s no reason why things should get back to how they were before. The correction might happen after the stock markets have recovered to January 2008’s levels, but it probably won’t wait long enough.

So which investments are going to turn out to be the best ones. Probably those that produce any kind of income that can be counted on, however small, deposit accounts, bonds with good ratings, those shares with better dividends but not gold. Things probably won’t get dire enough for gold’s status as the ultimate safe haven to come into play.

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As I was writing this gloomy outlook I was prompted to have a look at my SIPP online and I noticed that an exchange traded fund I hold was down 30%. This ETF invests in Brazilian stocks and I can’t see why this big drop should occur. It looks as if there really was a collapse in the bid prices on the stock exchange yesterday afternoon but no corresponding problems with the Brazilian stock index or the value of the Real. Strange and scary and presumably some kind of glitch, which will be righted on Monday morning.

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Great news that Lloyds and RBS have been told that their senior staff can’t have cash bonuses. There seems to be a trend developing of the argument that different professions will leave their posts in droves if they don’t get the right pay and incentives. This argument has already been made in respect of MPs and investment bankers and now it’s being applied to barristers who take legal aid cases. This argument seems to fly in the face of the current state of affairs where opportunities to switch careers or employers are thin on the ground.

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At times this week has looked as if it might be a tipping point for politicians’ commitment to fighting in Afghanistan but Labour and the Conservative Party seem to be holding firm.

The NATO allies seem to have reached a stalemate on three fronts, with President Karzai, the Taliban and with one another. It looks as if neither the Prime Minister nor, more importantly, President Obama can announce any significant increase in troops being deployed without some more commitment from other NATO members.

Where this will leave British policy by the next election is unclear.

The only ground where some change seems to be taking effect is state of mind of muslims. Little by little, the terrorists and insurgents seem to be fracturing their own constituency. The potential for holy war drawing on some sympathy from millions of muslims is seeping away. Psychologically and spiritually, it looks as it’s becoming easier to ignore the claims - if not the threats - of the holy warriors, especially in Pakistan. NOt that the 'al Qaeda' era isn't going to leave plenty of mental scars in the lives of many muslims.

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I’ve read one good book since last posting; ‘The Maze of Cadiz’ by Aly Monroe. Set where you’d expect in 1944, it’s about a member of the secret service on his first assignment, looking into the suspicious death of his predecessor. The hero is just a little flat and in a couple of places I struggled understanding the dialogue but the story has a good pace and leads you on.

I had a walk from Hambledon to Chiddingfold in the middle of the week and got caught in a short, sharp downpour towards the end. The walk included a stretch where you can see Blackdown in one direction and Leith Hill in the other (with dark clouds above both).

Posting rate has risen sharply this month. For much of this year the sense of not having much to say has been strong. Well, not not much period but not much that’s not already been said. After all the financial drama of 2008 it feels as if the spirit of the age has swept by leaving me trailing in the dust.

Today’s thoughts are not original but I feel them strongly so here goes.

The not so original topic to write about is the Treaty of Lisbon and the post of President of its Council.

But first I’d like to give a brief glimpse of the pages of my never-to-be-written autobiography. Years ago, say about 25 to 30 years ago, I thought the European Union was a great idea. I can’t remember if I voted for it in the referendum but I think I did. Now I’m very disillusioned with the EU. This isn’t utter disillusionment; it’s reversible, but as an institution the EU seems to have lost its way. I don’t warm to eurosceptic politicians and neither do I like the bland reassurances the government issues on the subject. I even blame the Liberal Democrats for not seeming to mind more that the EU is such a mess.

The EU in general still has its uses but the treaty and the debate about the presidency show that none of our politicians, Brown, Sarkozy and Merkel know where to take it. They’ve lost sight of the greatest thing about the EU, that it really is a club for democracies and freedom lovers. How true is it to say that as if it was a fact rather than an aspiration? I still think it’s partly fact but there’s a worm eating away in the core of this apple – an acceptance of the theory that the only way to make the EU effective is to have an oligarchy of leaders and bureaucrats.

About a year ago Jose Manuel Barroso was quoted using the phrase, apropos joining the euro, ‘the people who count in the United Kingdom’ and contrasting them with the bulk of UK voters. This may have been mis-speaking on the part of Sr Barroso but it certainly sums up the impression that the EU’s leaders have given in the course of the treaty negotiations.

The EU leaders seem to be on the look-out for someone who counts as their new President of the Council. It’s not difficult to see why Tony Blair looks like an attractive candidate. He has big-hitter status and he probably would be effective in chairing those meetings. He might not hi-jack the role for self-glorification.

However, all of this is beside the point, he’s still a big-hitter for all the wrong reasons and he’s still unpopular with a larger section of the UK public than just the eurosceptics. Gordon Brown’s decision to black Mr Blair looked like ineptitude similar to the TA cuts or perhaps a vindictive attempt to push along his candidacy but knowing all the while that it’s bound to fail and that his predecessor would be humiliated in the process. In fact, it seems most likely that it’s an effort to leave awkward legacy for David Cameron.

Whatever it is the government doesn’t seem to realise that they are trivialising the EU issue and the leaders of the other major European states seem to be encouraging them. None of them seem to realise that there may well be no more floors above the current one – national democracies rubbing along together. And if there is a higher level of integration, those same national democracies need to find it through democratic means. Every member state should have had a referendum. Until the leaders of the EU come to realise that their trajectory is going to be like a kind of long lasting bungy jump and in the end they’ll end up just where they started – if their lucky.

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Not much else to report this week. I had a local walk, Eashing Bridge to Lombard Street and back earlier in the week. The fine weather seemed to bring out lots of people to enjoy themselves and almost everyone was friendlier.

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I’ve enjoyed the first of Andrew Marr’s History of Modern Britain although the shots of him in black and white seem rather odd. I remember when I was a lot younger, a relative telling me about an election hustings they attended and the candidate (presumably a Liberal) held up two loaves, a free trade loaf and a protection loaf, which was, of course, noticeably smaller. I guess that was the general election of 1906 and the relative would have been an eleven year old. I also enjoyed ‘Defying Gravity’ enough to watch it again. Finally, Evan Davis interviewing Warren Buffett was an excellent programme. It conveyed the combination of Buffett’s likeableness with the clear suggestion that there’s more to his strategy than his principles would lead one to believe.

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Talking of investment gurus, it looks as if the long awaited correction in the markets may be starting. Possibly, I’m not too pessimistic but I wonder if the lack of any revolutionary fire to lend to business and create jobs may be behind investors’ current confidence. Institutions and big private investors are breathing a sigh of relief and hoping that 2006 really will come around again. Meanwhile the rest of are hoping for something humbler.

back again much more quickly than usual. This isn't so much another post as a continuation of the last one.

Very glad to see the bankers' bonuses getting so much attention.

The banks indicating that they want to pay investment bankers the kind of bonuses that were paid before 2008 makes me wonder if we will find that this is a double dip recession; it looks as if it could be that the bankers know they need to get their reward now because they can see more problems ahead than the rest of us; at least as far as investment banking is concerned.

We've heard quite a lot recently about how it's easier for banks to make big profits at the moment because there aren't so many banks to compete. This suggests that it hasn't needed exactly top notch investing skills on the part of the staff for the banks to rake in good profits and that there should be more competition for bankers jobs and, hence, a good reason for reduced remuneration.

The obvious conclusion to draw from a bonus bonanza would be that there is an investment bankers' network or inner circle. Or maybe the indispensability of the bankers is similar to a person playing a hand in a card game. I that partner has to leave, it would be difficult for someone else to pick up that hand and play their best.

I'm inclined to think that the regulators and the legislators should make a start on insisting that the bonuses are paid in shares that can't be sold for 3 to 5 years. Ordinary staff share schemes work like that. That would at least address the possibility that the investment bankers are planning a mass migration to paradisial bolt holes in the next few months.

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Last Sunday had an excellent article by Andrew Sullivan about why President Obama is such a wilely operator. He's waiting for his opponents to make mistakes and for his range of options to crystallise - as it were.

I've also read a strange police procedural, 'Morituri', by an Algerian with the nom de plume, Yasmina Khadra. Khadra whose work is shot through with pain and bitterness about modern day Algeria, lives in exile in France. It was interesting to read a writer from a muslim country who was so resolutely non-committal or even sceptical about religion.

I've also been reading one of Fred Vargas's novels about Commissaire jean Baptiste Adamsberg, 'This Night's Foul Work'. Very good. Adamsberg works his detective magic by intuitive genius, rather like the fool in King Lear working as a plain clothes policeman.

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We had a pleasant stroll around Witley Common today and saw some great toadstools (fly agric - red and spotty). No time so far this week for a longer walk as the gardening is crying out for attention. Partly, this is reaping the consequences of putting things off when it was warmer but maybe there are just too many plants making for more work in the trimming and cutting back season.

Another long pause while I've been deserted by the blogging muse. This is partly being busy and partly losing any sense of where current affairs are headed.

Despite the relative busy-ness on the work front, I've fitted in a walk (in fact it may be two walks - can't remember if the first one was covered in the previous post). The first one was a walk from home because I was temporarily without a car. This made it a mainly familiar walk although I did manage to lose myself on the local common - it can only be the size of a couple of football pitches but it's densely wooded. The adjacent common was the location of a giant Canadian army camp during World War One but there seems to be nothing to mark that fact.

The more recent walk was from Grayswood up towards the Devil's Dyke and must be the most gradual ascent possible. By the finish, you're about 850 feet up and have great views to the South Downs. It was a lovely sunny afternoon. The way back wasn't as satisfactory; it goes through Forestry Commission land and the (permissive) footpath is a quagmire. Presumably the commission don't often have to use their footpath themselves.

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I don't have a take on current politics; just a few random thoughts:

I've just been reading an interview with Adam Posen, member of the Monetary Policy Committee, where he says that more quantitative easing may be necessary and that British banks may need to be broken up. He also seems worried that the toxic asset problems of RBS and Lloyds won't be fixed before the QE programme has to be reversed. This seems puzzling in view of the fact that we've been hearing so much about the government's plan to insure these assets. Anyway, it looks as if there's some kind of accounting crunch heading the way of the part-state-owned banks.

The paper(Sunday Times) is very concerned about bankers' pay and rightly so. It seems obvious that these big bonuses are not going to continue. Investment bankers may not be no better than gamblers but, equally, quite a lot of them have achieved through taking gambles in the recent past and that game is more or less over. Their bluff needs to be called; there can't truly be a true job's market where some people's skills are worth so much more than others'.

I've been working on an article about bond exchange traded funds recently and hence weighing up what the media has to say about the direction of interest rates. Bond prices denominated in Sterling seem to have priced in more inflation expectations than, say, those denominated in the euro. This seems realistic but possibly slightly overdone. After all, if the government tries to spend too much money, or borrow too much or do anything else that the global financial community doesn't like the look of, there'll be a run on the pound. The UK has until when the rest of the world feels that fears of a depression are safely in the past and then financial constraints are going to be a lot tighter. This will probably happen just about the time of next year's general election.

Speaking of which, the Scottish Nationalists look as if they are going to make a miscalculation about the amount of leverage they can have in a hung Parliament. The other parties, even ones that might sell the Union down the river, are going to be too worried about a budget crisis and or a currency crisis to be leant on by the Nationalists for extra funding for Scotland.

I liked Harriet Harman's comparison of the allowances repayments, being demanded of MPs by Sir Thomas Legge, to a tax miscalculation; the error isn't necessarily a crime but, if it comes to light, it will always have to be repaid. In a sense, this imposition by Sir Thomas is a taste of their own medicine; a couple of years ago, the Labour MPs were perfectly happy to inflict the flat rate capital gains tax on the country - a notion with massive retrospective effects on thousands of people.

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Need to stop this ramble now but hope to be back sooner than usual.

I'm up-to-date with writing. Well, I've done all I can but I'm expecting - and hoping for more work to do - later this week. So it seems like a good time to post.

The Irish re-referendum put the European Union in mind. Where do you begin with Europe? Not with the ratification of the Lisbon treaty, I'm tempted to say.

The important matters facing the Europeans are, firstly, the unlikelihood of the EU member states being able to agree on a coordinated policy to ensure the continent's energy security. Secondly, mainland Europe's unpreparedness for defending itself against terrorists or other security threats. To be more precise, the situation in Afghanistan seems to be an indication that the case for putting any but a token number of armed forces in harms way is unwinnable.

Europe has enjoyed a very successful sixty five years. There's been economic miracles, a period of unparalleled plenty for much of the continent together with liberty, democracy and welfare. Twenty years ago there was a massive boost to this success story with the collapse of the Soviet empire and the crumbling of the iron curtain together with a repeat of the whole enriching process in the eastern half of the continent.

However, there's a darker story alongside all the successes with a massive reduction in Europe's relative size (in terms of population) and its economic importance. The scope for Europe finding itself imposed upon has been increasing stealthily. With the US guaranteeing Europe's security, the continent has become used to safety at a fraction of its true cost in terms of treasure or collective will. If they could, the leaders of the EU would probably opt for securing the continent with a few dynastic marriages like the Hapsburgs.

When it comes to the Lisbon treaty, it's not so much that it making Europe's leaders less accountable - though it does seem to be doing that, too. It's more that when it comes to foreign policy it seems to be aiming for a point between two stools. The new post of High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy looks like a fine way of saving anyone having to really take responsibility for security. This isn't surprising because ever since 1957 the EU has been able to lean heavily on outsiders for defence. It was just this focus on security that the Irish objected to so much in their first referendum.

Without an almost unimaginable degree of unanimity in terms of practical defence measures, there's no point in having a common security policy. A common EU approach to security is only going to work if we're about to enjoy some years of unprecedented peacefulness to make it easy (or possibly a threat so dire that everyone was shaken out of complacency).

The UK for one is a long way from seeing security issues so plainly. Neither the Conservatives nor the Liberals - but for different reasons - seem happy to mention the EU in the same breath as defence. And this failure to engage with security issues looks like a continent-wide phenomenon. Although, there are some sound arguments for scaling down the involvement in Afghanistan, you can't help wondering if a lot of European politicians are not only lukewarm about NATO involvement but embarrased because it's demonstrates all too clearly how little political will there is for a campaign anywhere or any time.

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There was an interesting editorial piece by Andrew Sullivan in yesterday's Sunday Times, recommending inaction on President Obama's part for a while longer because it's so difficult to see which way the wind is blowing in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Although the United States has tended to approach campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, as justified sorting out, straightening what's become crooked, there is another side to America. As a revolutionary nation themselves, they're also pre-disposed to be demoralised by successful insurgency.

It's probably been said already (and put better) but it looks as if Afghanistan is one of the last examples of something. The country may be a mess and the people hopeless and despairing because of all the cruelty visited on them but is nation building what they really wanted? Isn't there some kind of looser polity that could be made to work?

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No walks this week except a visit to Winkworth Arboretum to look at the autumn colours. It's a peak effort time in my garden making sure that things don't become so big and high that I need outside help to keep it under control. Today, we're having the first real rain for a long time. There are pigeon feathers on the grass but I saw the pigeon get away from the ginger cat that pounced on it out of nowhere.

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I've been reading 'The Other Side Of You' by Salley Vickers; very thought provoking.

I've been away for about 10 days enjoying a late summer break near Cardigan. Although I stayed just 15 miles away from our base this time, it was new country for me. The place was called Mwnt (Mount) after its easily identified conical hill right on the coast. Next to the hill there's a neat square beach with cliff walls on three sides. The coast here is pretty 'cliffy' altogether but where you can get down to the shore the beaches - Tresaith, Penbryn, Llangrannog - are all great; lots of dogs though. My favourite was Penbryn; we saw dolphins there the first day we visited. We also spent an hour or so on the harbour wall at Newquay in the hope of seeing some more but no luck that day. The best view was the clifftop walk from Llangrannog north eastwards. We also had excellent fish and chips at the water's edge in Llangrannog. The plan had been to watch the sun go down over the water but it actually set just behind the cliff. Llangrannog featured in my partners childhood holidays, circa 1969, so it was a visit to old haunts as far as she was concerned.

We stopped off on the Welsh border for a couple of nights on the way home. The Black Mounains around Hay on Wye were a favourite destination of mine for walking back in the 80s - great scenery and fairly accessble if you don't have a car. On Sunday, the views were better than I remembered.

Talking of cars, I think I may have been sitting in mine for too long as I arrived home on Monday with a pulled muscle. This has made sitting up to use the PC uncomfortable so further delay in posting.

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Before going away I took a couple of good walks. The latest was a circuit covering Puttenham Common and Puttenham village, including stopping off for a beer at the Good Intent (inn sign, a Roundhead soldier praying). prior to that I had a great walk starting at Thursley and then crossing a corner of Thursley Common, crossing over into Hankley Common and walking along its eastern edge. The hill in the common's SE corner goes up to 135m and gives a good view up to the Devil's Punchbowl. The common is used by the Army but there didn't seem to be any firing that day - just a helicopter overhead.

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Now that the main parties have all said that there are going to have to be government spending cuts, the tenor of the pre-election debate seems to have changed markedly. Although this seems like welcome frankness, there is always the danger that the winners of the next general election could start cutting too soon (as Anatole Kaletsky pointed out a few weeks ago).

I guess that frankness about cuts in spending could mean that they threaten recovery more - rather like the nurse telling the nervous patient that the hyperdermic will be excrutiatingly painful. However, if there's too little talk about cuts, holders of sterling will start ditching it rapidly.

There's also the possibility of a backlash against cuts like the Winter of Discontent back in 1979. I don't suppose that any of the parties believe that is their worst danger but some form of coalition after the election would be able to face down union unrest more easily.

The problem for the public sector is that although it's a massive interest group, it doesn't have compelling champions. So 12 years of New Labour is beginning to look like a breathing space for advocates of big government rather than a true revival. The idea that clever people can engineer balance and harmony in society looks less convincing than ever. You don't have to go as far as Lady Thatcher and abolish society altogether to suspect that most societies most of the time are seriously flawed. If there are good apolgists for a more hopeful view of social and economic planning, they don't seem to be getting a hearing.

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I watched BBC2's excellent 'Wounded', a programme about the recovery and rehab of two soldiers who suffered horrific injuries in Afghanistan. I would really like to have known how they came to give permission for the film to be made. On the whole, it was excellent and very moving and, of course, raises all sorts of questions about whether the sacrifice is worthwhile.

As of now it looks as if those in favour of continuing the campaign in Afghanistan are losing the debate. And if you look to some members of NATO, it looks as if it's already lost.

And yet, it's almost as if there were too many reasons for staying but none of them are sufficient on their own. Personally, I would say that the destabilising effect of NATO failure on Pakistan and the fact that the Afghans have been pushed around for too long are the strongest arguments for remaining while the war on drugs is less convincing. The war on terror seems unquantifiable in as much as although the threat is real, the importance of Afghanistan to the terrorists - as opposed to nearby parts of Pakistan - seems less certain. As for President Karzai, his government seems to make more sense to the allies than the Afghans themselves.

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I've enjoyed reading Barbara Nadel's 'River of the Dead', mainly set in the far South East of Turkey. This is the best of the Inspector ikmen stories that I've read so far. There's a lot about islamic- christian - ancient pagan syncretism in that part of the world which was interesting to read about.

Two posts a month seems to be a challenge at the moment. I've been working on two fronts; firstly, working through the editors' suggested changes to one of my books and secondly a once a week contribution to an investing website.

The editing process swings between highly enjoyable and very frustrating. The offering for the investing website is somewhere in between. One particular challenge is having to think up the subjects to write about. Despite quite a lot of writing experience in the last two years, I'm more used to working on subject matter decided by someone else. Thinking of my own subjects is more challenging than I allowed for and all too easy to decide on a subject that works out more difficult than one's expecting.

The long and the short of it is that all the work seems to blotting up the inspiration for ordinary blogging. I'm not really sure how this happens because the focus of the work is relatively narrow. Somehow, it must be using up brain capacity.

So, if I say that, as far as current affairs are concerned, everything seems to be in a state of suspended animation, this may be the state of my brain cells rather than political reality. Or maybe the government really is treading water until (next year's) general election. At least the Prime Minister is prepared to admit now that there will have to be cuts in government spending. Well done, Alistair Darling, and thank goodness you faced down Ed Balls's attempted job snatch. I'm still doubtful that any of the political parties on their own will be prepared to take the tough decisions needed to sort out the nation's finances.

The most worrying aspect of that danger is that the UK ends up unable (or just unwilling) to pay for key parts of our own national security. The arguments over equipping the armed forces could become a lot more serious.

Whether Afghanistan is a key component of security still seems open to question. The government says that it is but they don't really say enough to give weight to their case. Is this to allow for a change of heart or just a realisation that sound argument will be drowned out by people's feelings about the casualties, or because the case really isn't so strong?

The Afghan election has been another instance of half-hearted debate about the fighting. There's been a lot of debate about the low turnout in Helmand invalidating the whole Panther's Claw operation and even the British Army's presence there. But there's a lot of good that could be done for the locals in Helmand before they get around to voting. The Taliban are denying the inhabitants of Helmand many, more basic freedoms than that.

So the politicians and the UK voters owe it to the troops and the Afghans to have a proper debate about what's happening this winter. Further down the road another debate across a broader arena is needed about being tied into a supranational political institution, the EU, that has no ability or will to protect Europeans' interests with military force.

I listened to most of the repeat of the radio drama about the Lockerbie trial in the Hague. As far as I can work out, a lot of the case hangs on the identification of the clothing in the bomb suitcase by the owner of the shop in Malta where the garments were purchased. It also seems possible that some lines of enquiry were pursued with more diligence than others.

I've always thought that it seems wrong that other prisoners don't get released early because they keep on insisting their innocence but al Megrahi case has made me think again.

In any case, al Megrahi's release was on compassionate grounds, as we keep being told. Granted, if you deny someone their last few weeks with friends and family close by, it's an opportunity gone forever - just like executing a person who turns out to be innocent. Yet surely, with the opportunity to 'say goodbye' denied to so many victims, this is compassion that shouldn't have been in any politician's gift. Just possibly, if there were serious concerns the case was unsound, he should have been released within Scotland but not allowed to return to Libya.

So it's Scots law relating to prisoner release that's at fault. However, the Westminster government do seem to have been preparing the ground for letting al Megrahi go home themselves by agreeing to include him in a prisoner exchange scheme with Libya. Presumably, that agreement applied to prisoners in Scotland and might have been put into effect if the Scottish government had decided to try and keep Megrahi.

Also, the release of Ronnie Biggs a few days earlier looks suspiciously like softening the ground preparatory to al Megrahi's release.

In years to come it'll be interesting to see what else comes to light.

After all the focus on the Scottish government in the al Megrahi case (the inluence over foreign policy that the Labour government don't seem to have realised they were giving the devolved government), it was interesting to hear Alex Salmond state his intention to propose a referendum on Scottish independence to the Holyrood Parliament in the next 12 months. Would that be a referendum timed to coincide with the Westminster elections?

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I'v had one good walk in the last couple of weeks. This started at Frensham Great Pond and wound up hill to the west of Churt, crossing over into Hampshire for about half the distance covered. The highlight was Huntingford Bridge (over the River Wey in its early stages) and the much smaller pond a mere hundred yards down from the Great Pond.

I've not done so much reading recently but borrowed a book about the archaelogical search for the real Emmaus by Carsten P Thiede. The most interesting part of this was the case he makes for the references made by Josephus to Jesus in his account of the Jewish War of AD 70 being authentic. Most commentators have discounted these references to Jesus - which refer to the resurrection - saying that Josephus would never have said such things.

We've had a bumper harvest of plums. The tomatoes have been less successful and not particularly tasty - don't think I'll bother next year. The main feature of the garden currently is the row of 13 foot sunflowers looking over the garden from next door - like some floral surveillance.

Another long gap since my last post. The reason is partly a lack of momentum but mainly due to being busy on the work front.

The editing process for the latest book has begun and there's a lot of suggestions coming back from the editor for me to weigh up. The book is supposed to be accessible to first time investors which presents a problem. What may be vital information for one reader may be 'old hat' for someone else. the question is how far back to draw the starting line. Presumably the same problem faces all the journalists who write for the personal finance pages of the papers. The solution that they usually deploy - in my opinion - is fudging it by making everything seem simpler and less risky than it really is.

Granted that it's a bee in my bonnet, but I honestly believe that the problem is much more serious than people realise. Not only are levels of financial 'literacy' quite low but there's not even a common level of basic understanding.

One answer might be to make personal finance a component of secondary education. The Personal Finance Education Group have a programme for introducing the subject in secondary schools - and all power to their elbow. Specialist trainers in the subject may be the answer but expecting teachers to deliver financial education doesn't seem realistic. Given that teachers (in the main) are paid a monthly salary and should be enrolled in a fairly satisfactory occupational pension scheme, most of them are in the ranks of the financially secure. They may be part time or supply teachers or have financial pressures entirely separate to their personal income but they have the basics of sensible finances. Would it work to use them as the channel for financial education for people who could well face a working life of much less financial security and real difficulty in saving for their retirement?

In fact - I believe - that the problem of equipping everyone with the wherewithal to navigate the personal finance maze goes deeper than the difficulty of fitting it into the school curriculum. The real problem is that current culture doesn't really permit a lively discussion about how personal finance should work. The UK public accept the welfare state but it's a passive acceptance, something that has been handed down from a generation who will now be no less than eighty years old. It's probably much easier for politicians to talk about eradicating child poverty than to debate reducing inequality, even though the two subjects are really two sides of the same coin. Equality/inequality are off-limits to most politicians. The reasons for this aren't easy to diagnose.

A politician could say that they want to make poverty (or inequality) history but it would be unwise because they're unlikely to succeed. In fact, it's easier for a politician to speak out on world poverty - and all credit to the Prime Minister for his dedication to this - but the electorate are not going to pay as much attention to what actually happens as a result. It's also noteworthy that the moral argument for action on this front has come from outside politics.

It's far more likely that the age old mixture of financial winners and losers is going to continue than that any politician is going to be able to significantly reduce inequality. It's a dilemma for politicians; they can't fix it and neither can they be seen to be condoning it. More than politics is needed to gain some purchase on a problem like inequality. What's needed is some recognition that, for many people, the way in which inequality and absolute poverty flourish has a meaning. In the existing consensus the idea that inequality can have a spiritual or philosophical meaning seems controversial but that's only because society is so determinedly neutral about such matters.

Ironically, without more discussion of the meaning of inequality, there's no way of finding out how much common ground there is on the subject between religious people and materialists and peeople of different religious persuasions. Of course, there may be serious differences but the debate would surely be worth having.

If you travelled back to, say, 1850 there would have been a consensus about personal finance centring on ideas of self help, thrift and charity. This would have been the early Victorians approach to understanding the desirability of personal responsibility alongside the problem that nearly everyone has to 'navigate' through much that's beyond one's own control. In the century before John Wesley said "Make all you can, save all you can, give all you can".

Modern thought doesn't have much to offer on what inequality means but it should; wealth is a moral issue. Although a once and for all solution to inequality seems unlikely, more debate about what it means might throw up enough good ideas and public pressure to fill the politicians' sails so to speak.

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I was thinking about posting on the idea of immigrants speeding up their applications for citizenship by getting involved in party politics but I'll leave that for the time being.

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Apart from work, there's been plenty to do on the vegetable plot. Despite the digging in the spring, the vegetable beds are in danger of being overwhelmed by brambles. I've started digging up the main crop potatoes - can't remember what they're called but they're a lovel pink colour. Not so tasty just boiled (as the salad ones)but beautiful fried or roasted. This week the plums are ripening.

I've had two walks since last posting. Walk one was in and around Grayswood. when you drive through Grayswood looks just like a residential part of Haslemere with a rather nice cricket green but there's an interesting hill in the middle of it with a view to the east. This was a shortish walk but the second was longer. This started near Dunsfold (Hookhouse Road), walking to the village and out again across a couple of fields to the Godalming Road. One of the fields had about thirty young cows in it who came to check me out. I retreated to the style until they lost interest. The other side of the Godalming road the footpath crosses what looks like a park (with a dried up lake)and as the ground rises towards Hascombe Hill you have a great view of the South Downs. Closer to hand there's a stone circle but since this doesn't feature on the map, I guess it's a recreation of a stone circle. Will it be added in the next time the map surveyors come round? After that the walk winds up to the top of Hascombe Hill with lots of fir trees. The hill really was a fort in the first century BC but there doesn't appear to be any information about that. After that the walk went down rather more steeply, back across the Godalming Road and part way up and around Breakneck Hill.

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Recent good books have included 'Child 44' by Tom Rob Smith, about tracking down a Russian serial killer in the year Stalin died, and 'Sacrifice' by S J Bolton, about serial killings on Shetland narrated by a slightly irritating hospital consultant. On a more elevated level, I read ;'The Jesus Papyrus' by C P Thiede and Matthew D'Ancona. This is about redating St Matthew's Gospel and the evidence of a scrap of papyrus found in Egypt in the 1890s but now lodged at Magdalene College, Oxford.

Another long gap in posting. I'm not sure if this is down to busy-ness or disinclination. If the latter, am I just being idle or have I tapped into the mood of the moment. Is the mood one of enervation or is it just personal low-wattage?

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What a difference a couple of months makes. For the last week the Army's problems in Helmand have been all over the news, triggered by the higher than normal number of casualties and deaths out there. Yet back in May the media and the public seemed to have forgotten about Afghanistan; generally speaking, we were too busy finding out about the ways in which MPs had been playing the Commons' allowances system.

Operation Panther's Claw has been partly responsible for the rise in the number of deaths and some of the population will have maintained their concern for what was happening in Afghanistan in spite of May's juicy political scandal but the fact remains that we're not good at multi-tasking with political stories and, once our attention has been diverted, we don't retain what we've just learned. Political stories have a way of simply dying themselves, as if we depend upon the collective focus to maintain interest or we become slightly shamefaced about forgetting the old stories.

This attention deficit gives politics a curious serial quality as if it was a sequence of court cases. The government are in the dock over something they did or didn't do but in the great majority of cases the jury never reaches a verdict; something else comes up and the government are let off the hook. Sometimes the focus shifts away from the government to greedy bankers or incompetent social workers but it's surprising how often government mistakes trump others' misdeeds. The media were very quick to focus on Lord Myners letting Sir Fred Goodwin get away with his fat pension (AIG directors' remuneration got the Obama administration into hot water in its first weeks in office).

Right now the Prime Minister is the focus of media attention (ie. on trial) for opting to send just 700 more troops to Afghanistan instead of the 2,000 extra the defence chiefs appeared to have wanted. Listening to the PM answer questions from James Arbuthnot on this when he went before the Commons Liaison Committee on Wednesday was deeply unimpressive. It was obvious he was stalling but, more than that, the game of 'I'll answer the question I would have liked you to ask me' had rendered the exercise pointless. It's clear that there's no way to frame the question in such a way as to force a clever minister to spill the beans'.

The Prime Minister came out of the exchange looking decidedly shifty and we can only assume that some combination of parsimony and covering up for past mistakes led to the 700 soldiers decision. The committee appearance served no purpose as the public have drawn their own conclusions and the Prime Minister already had form for appearing shifty.

Two things can be said in the PM's defence. Firstly, and more personally, he talks as if he understands that he's supposed to be accountable. He seems to speak to journalists more and, given the long record that New Labour have now, that's never going to be easy.

The second point relates to the political system rather than this particular Prime Minister's personal style. The fact is with the kind of politics we have the part of national life the Prime Minister is responsible for is all about money. Politicians make the decision they do because they are under financial constraints. (Critics may say that a lot of money is wasted in the public sector but public funds have been seeping away to public servants and government contractors since the time of the pharoahs.) The critical issue is that the election debate there should be about how much money there is and what the government should spend it on is never going to happen. The spending review and the defence review will happen after the general election. The opposition won't challenge the government on this sufficiently forcefully because it suits them not to have spell these thing out to potential voters. They probably couldn't make a serious fuss anyway, because the public aren't sufficiently interested.

This issue of being clear about the sums is the area where revolt is really needed, not the MP's expenses. It's the endless reporting on policies without the sums that makes UK politics so short-term and, ultimately, futile.

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I've been on one good walk in the last fortnight. This was along the western side of Blackdown on Monday last week. I avoided getting soaked by seconds. I knew that it was going to become busier work-wise after that. However, on Thursday we had made a day trip to the Isle of Wight, just visiting old haunts. We were pleased to see the new walkway across the mud at Newtown harbour.

I've read one good book, 'The Last Breath' by Denise Mina, set in Glasgow in the nineties, I think. It was published two years ago but written before MS Windows and mobile phones became universal or the Northern Ireland peace process succeeded. Anyway, it's a good read, more for the human interest than the plot.

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I've also been reading some of the debates about the controversy around Quirinius, Governor of Syria at the beginning of the first century CE (as it seems to be called now). The controversy is that St Luke uses Quirinius's census to date the birth of Christ but the the reign of Herod the Great, the other historical fact that the evangelists use, ended in 4 BCE. Sceptics use this conflict to argue against the infallibility of Scripture while christians have been thinking of arguments to account for the discrepancy for nearly three hundred years.

Of course this raises all sorts of questions about whether Christ's divinity 'depends' upon Scripture or whether Scripture's status as inspired 'depends' upon its recognition of who Christ was.

Another longish gap since last posting. On a positive note, the latest opus has gone off to the publisher.

On the whole I've enjoyed the latest book and I'm dead keen on the subject matter. I definitely plan to take it further.

I've had two great walks since last posting and a trip to the beach (first sight of the sea since the holiday in Scotland).

Walk No.1 was from near the top of Blackdown to the village of Northchapel and back again via a different route. The only problem with this walk is that the way out includes a steep downhill and the way back an equally steep up. I wouldn't attempt it today because it's too hot but two weeks' ago was just perfect. The way out was a new route for me and the start was confusing. The National Trust have put wild cattle on the top of Blackdown to maintain the heathland habitat etc. etc. This means that there's a fence to stop the cattle walking off the hill. There are also several gates which - I now know - have no relation to public footpaths.

At Northchapel I had a pint of bitter in the Half Moon and read about Noah Mann, landlord, who was a famous early cricketer and famously tall. Apparently, he died young from carousing in his own inn and then falling into the embers on the hearth in the small hours.

The way back linked up with a previous walk from Lurgashall.

walk No. 2 This started from a lane just past the Lickfold Inn and went up to the top of Bexley Hill (close to the TV mast). Most of this walk was along the north (scarp) face of the hill and a lot of it was under the trees. According to the map it's all woodland up there but there's an extensive open area. This walk's refreshment was taken at the Duke of Cumberland at Henley. I chose Staropramen because it was a hotter day and took it outside to the pub's enormous garden.

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We've been digging up our crop of salad potatoes - very tasty - and yesterday I was picking the beginning of the blackcurrants (maybe beginning and middle would be more accurate).

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I've read a couple of good books lately. Firstly, Alan Furst's 'The Spies of Warsaw', which is another in his series of convincing espionage stories set in the late thirties. However, there was one anachronism; he refers to embassy staff in Singapore but surely Singapore was a colony at that time and would only have had consular staff.

The second good read was Stephen L Carter's 'Palace Council' which is a thriller woven around a group of influential mainly black Americans from the fifties to the seventies. This excellent, educative if you want to learn some American modern history but somewhat long.

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I don't have a lot to say about the political situation except that I hope that David Cameron and the political correspondents are able to pin the government down about its spending plans. The next election has got to be all about spending cuts and tax increases and complete openess about government finances.

It seems as if the Prime Minister sees vision as synonymous with spending to bring about change; but doesn't allow much room for everyone's native wit helping to bring things around.

Personally, the future looks more like an age of people being well versed in all sorts of interesting subjects and ideas, lots of creativity and rather less consumerism.