Ancalagon

So, its New Year's Eve 2010, and I've ended up spending the night with family who live on a farm about 2 hours east of me. Everyone goes to bed except my cousin's husband, his friend (who happens to be the youngest brother of a famous rugby player) and myself. Eventually, even my cousin's husband goes to bed, leaving the rugby player's brother and I talking.

He's a little older than me, and in true older person style, decides to give me some advice. Now, alcohol and time have made...

So, I’ve been living in South Africa for nearly 3 months now. Kinda weird to think that. I mean... I lived in the UK for 3 years. Things like the Tube, TFL, pints, pounds and cold weather all became very normal to me. Moving back to South Africa was a little like rediscovering those things you had left behind, and finding that they really hadn’t changed much, but you had. Sort of. But better.

Living in South Africa is great. I love driving my car to work every day, even if I do get...

Yes.... I'm in the land of the living, and more importantly, back in the land of the internet.

Its been a long road to get here. On Monday I start work, and there goes my free time. I'm looking forward to that, oddly. I expect it to be less stressful than the last few weeks have been.

I landed in South Africa on January the 3rd. Thats when things started to get hectic. The day I landed, I needed to get customs clearance for the stuff I shipped from the UK. Then I had...

So.... my time in London is drawing to a close. I've booked my ticket home for the 2nd of January 2009. I have about a month left of work in the UK. My stuff was shipped home today (more on that later), and I'm moving out of my room next weekend. I'll probably camp in the house for 3 weeks, my brother says I can stay in his room for a week, and then we go on holiday for a week, and then 3 days later I fly.

Anyway, this was intended to be one of those long rambling posts, where I spout...

So... recently we've been seeing a lot of news articles about how the British government wants to tighten up the laws about bankers and their bonuses. Oh those naughty bankers, paying yourself a lot again are we? Cant have that.

The thing is.... it smacks of misdirection to me. Last year we had that huge banking crisis. What caused it? Irresponsible regulation and credit instruments that were poorly understood. Huge bonuses were not a cause at all, but a symptom.

This,...