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I read about this last night before zooming off to bed. Osborne went over-budget last year and ended up borrowing a similar amount to cover the shortfall. The general plan - to get banks to lend more to small businesses and prospective home buyers - has been tried before. That's pretty much been the plan all along. Hasn't been realised at all yet. The big difference here is that, as you say, they are now being very vocal about what they are doing. Very good of Meryvn King to point out that it's the worst crisis since the Second World War. Obviously not a fan of history. Personally, I think I might have ranked the Cuban missile crisis a bit higher I don't even agree with some of their rationale. Maintaining house prices? Last thing we should be doing. The news has been reporting this week that the under 30s are going to be a rental generation, largely because they can't afford homes. Even some with homes will have issues meeting their mortgages, thus limiting the amount of disposable income they have and/or trapping them in that one house. There are other factors, but house prices largely went mental recently because of the sheer amount of credit handed out to those looking to buy, rising in line with what banks were prepared to lend. We now know that the banks were lending too much money. Why is the government borrowing money to prop up unrealistic house prices? Total economic meltdown has been coming for years. Completely avoidable, but no government wants to grasp the nettle and really deal with the banks. Now that we own part of most of them, it really shouldn't be too difficult getting them to lend.

Hehe. Trendy? Hardly When Firefox ( formerly Firebird ) first launched it was a revelation. Tabbed browsing on a free browser. IE spent years playing catch-up. Now everyone seems to be emulating Chrome.

I used to use Firebug. I use Chrome's dev tools if I want to do any debugging these days - but that's all I tend to use Chrome for. General purpose use would be Firefox. I have to test everything in IE too, so that sees a lot of play. For reading though, nothing beats Safari for me. I just really dig the font-smoothing in that browser.

Thanks a lot Chris - great piece of "extra mile" reporting.

Get them to pay for the time I spent dissing their service? It's a delicious idea, trousers. I am convinced that the social media angle has been a major factor in all of this. According to customer services, this issue has the attention of their Customer Experience Director. I'm not sure whether that's accurate or not, don't think I'd have got anywhere 20 years ago. Hooray for the Internet, I suppose.

More bloggage, and another phone call! http://frigsociety.com/2012/06/13/did-i-hire-a-vauxhall-corsa-or-a-delorean/ Will be resolved tomorrow, apparently. Cheers for the RTs.

Very good, especially the part about capitalism creating oligarchies. Working class right wingers have long been blaming their fellow citizens for our collective woes. It'll be interesting to see whether they can look up, instead of bullying those they consider below them. Personally I suspect that slavish deference to their well-heeled masters might be a stumbling block, especially if they're combining their "turkeys voting for Christmas" act with a bit of kneeling.

Star Trek uniform, obviously. TNG-era Command shirt for home games. TOS-era Command shirt for away games. Sixties miniskirts for semi-finals and beyond. Oh, and large banner reading "Turkish is my fashion guru".

Not really. Most Americans I've met have been nice, genuine people. That said, they have bugger all to do with foreign policy. It's important to differentiate between the actions of a Government and the characteristics of a people, especially since in most democracies, all we directly get to do is pick our representative. Fortunately, most people are able to make the distinction, and thank goodness for that. Don't think I'd have survived a minute in Northern Ireland if people held me accountable for the actions of my government. It is possible to be critical of a government's action without hating the country it represents. I should know. I've done it for years, both at home and abroad.

Are you a spin-doctor in real life, jawillwill? That is brilliant. It's heartening to see upstanding citizen fighting for the perceived image of the board, especially on the issue of spelling - which is something that footy fans are always mocked for. For a moment there, I thought you might be trying to get something for nothing.

Being completely honest, I'm utterly clueless about cricket and/or rugby - although, in my defence - I've never harped on when either has accidentally won something If the English cricket team is chock-full of foreigners, then I'd obviously feel the same way about them too.

On that we're agreed. I didn't support the Republic of Ireland in 1994. More than anything else, didn't like the way they'd put the team together. Felt it violated the purity of international football. One of my footballing pet hates is Andy Townsend anywhere near an England game.

I think you might be slightly guilty of "ordering off the menu", sir. People tend to treat the current economic situation as if its some inviolable scientific proof. It really isn't. I accept that people have been using coins and gold to buy goods and services for millennia, but the roots of the modern banking system started with the formation of central banks. The formation in the Federal Reserve in the US was nothing more than daylight robbery. It placed control of the US money supply into the hands of private bankers, and for those lucky few that control it - it is a licence to print money, both literally and figuratively. A couple of questions people need to ask themselves? 1) Who do we actually owe this money to? 2) What would really happen if we couldn't pay it back? I've been wondering that ever since money lost its tangibility. Most currencies aren't actually backed with anything other than belief. There is no hoard of gold guarded by a fire-breathing dragon. At this stage, it truly is money for nothing. I look at this so-called crisis in the EU, consider the fact that the continent is capable of being totally self-sufficient and idly wonder if I'm mad or everyone else is mental.

What? You mean Baz and Steve aren't Trotskyists living a carbon neutral existence in a weaving commune? I want my money back. The thought of them crashing Ferraris into walls just because they can off the back of our proletariat blueys sickens me

Pay your fiver, sonny.

The idea of a working capitalist system is an illusion. You can't really say it's a stable system. Ask the people of the 1930s how well capitalism redistributed the wealth. The US embarked on massive social programmes to get out of the crap. The fabricated financial catastrophe in the Weimar Republic facilitated the rise of demagogues like Hitler (although I accept there were many other reasons). Most of Europe was embroiled in war thereafter. We're once again mired in artificial crisis. Greece is furthest along. Families are putting their kids into state care because they can't afford to feed them. Parties on the extreme ends of the political spectrum are gaining traction. Any of this sound familiar? Capitalism is alright as long as you're prepared to put up with world wars and global depressions. Funnily enough, it's normally a raft of socialist policies that sort it all out once the dust has settled.

Mmm. Other countries don't cheer for the English shocker Is that any surprise really? The English are the cultural and economic powerhouse in this part of the world (and not afraid to go on about it). Add to that all the historical enmity and it isn't really surprising. Same thing happens with Canada and America.

And I've just seen this

Actually think this all started in 1994, the year that the Republic made the World Cup Finals and we didn't.

trousers - your support today, specifically "crossing the floor of the house" to help a beleaguered left-winger, was an inspiration - a true tale of how men of different political persuasions can find common cause against a seemingly invincible foe. I suppose I'd hoped that mere participation in the epic tale of the Europcar Martyrs would have been payment enough

They're still claiming the car was damaged, but not to the tune of £800 ( +£27 admin fee ). Now they're claiming that I damaged the car, but the extent of the damage was only £125. According to them, they charged me the full £800 because the damage assessment entry system was down. Instead of waiting for it to come back up, they charged me £800 instead of the actual amount. Assessed cost of damage = £125 + 27, which they say I'm responsible for. They're paying me the £675 back because I never owed it in the first place. Everything else is still in dispute.

Progress! Short version. They are repaying £675 immediately. I think the rest will follow. Long version is here. http://frigsociety.com/2012/06/11/how-to-make-152-from-a-single-sheet-of-a4-62-2/ Cheers for all the support so far.

Good man, trousers. Given the amount of time we have left in the day, shaping up to be the most popular post ever. Just a shame that my left-wing rants don't get as much attention!

I now have a tweet back from @europcar_uk offering to investigate. Blog piece is going gangbusters btw. Already the second most viewed post I've ever done. If you've been good enough to retweet, I thank you. If not, get on it

Already gone, sir! Went out the day they did their inspection. As I said in the blog piece, the efficiency of their Accounts Receivable department is second to none!