Look, just what have you lot been up to?

I don't know. I go away for a week's innocent holiday and the angel of financial death stalks the devasted land; I arrive back in the country and the FTSE enjoys what is now known in trading circles as a 'Mac bounce'. Clearly I cannot leave the country alone again, at least while Brown And Badger eyebrows are still nominally i/c.

Many thanks to the indomitable Captain Haddock for holding the fort in my absence. The Cap'n will continue to make weekly guest posts on JMP, sharing his curious mix of deep Green Maoist agitprop and Canadian holiday photos. Only without the Canadian holiday photos.

I'm still adjusting to life in a country where the Upper House is now graced by Baron Mandelson of Hartlepool and Foy, a twice-disgraced Secretary of State answerable to the Commons only through his lowly underlings in that Other Place; and where our premier's stock apparently continues to rise (a poor choice of phrase, sorry) on the back of financial disaster and the news that his eyesight is much worse than we had thought and apparently deteriorating. So while your humble blogger takes on board these seismic shocks, and more, I leave you with this:

Q What's the capital of Iceland?

A About four pound fifty.

Boom boom!