Today's FT has picked up on the fact that we working up some detailed research in respect of the amount of potentially defaulting debt secured against shopping centre assets.

We haven’t quite finished the detail yet, but as you will have read the scale is truly staggering.

Is a refrain I hear on a daily basis, largely due to my three year old son’s addiction to Scooby Doo.
However the Irish finance minister Brian Lenihan is quoted in an interview with FT as saying that their priapic property boom was fuelled by pesky kids, sorry, “externally owned subsidiaries”, who have now buggered off and left them in the lurch.

Which given that the Irish government let their own banking sector swell to over 400% of GDP, is a bit like a coroner putting the cause of death of Mr Creosote down to one little “waffer thin” mint.

On the subject of foreigners distorting markets, this is an extract from an article about Irish investors in the UK, printed in an Irish business newspaper in happier times:

“The flood of Irish money - or Irish borrowed money - across the water has prompted some to question whether the buyers are overpaying.

The counter argument is that Irish investors sometimes see angles that others don’t. They have also shown a willingness to improve what they have bought, rather than just do the sums on the deal and wait for the money to come in.

If Irish investors are getting the reputation for overpaying, they are also getting a reputation for driving a hard bargain to get the rents up. They will also sometimes play around with the mix of tenants in the building as a way of getting more people in the door, if it is a retail property.”

I think that hindsight has proved which was the case.

And on the subject of cases, a case of Guinness to anyone who can confirm which deal the above quote was referring to!

Gallows humour is getting better, as the world gets worse; expect to hear these trotted out over the coming months and years:

“A rolling loan, gathers no loss.” (Courtesy of those bright guys at Goldman’s)

“Their balance sheet is a mess; on the left nothing is right, on the right nothing is left.” (FT)

As regular readers (both of you) will have picked up, I am no great fan of Robert Peston and it would appear that I am in good company.

My previous criticisms were more to do with style than substance and, for example, I understand that David Cameron does a mean Pesto.  This hardly requires the mimicry skills of Rory Bremner, all you have to do is adopt a condescending sneer, a whiny voice and then randomly over emphasise seemingly unconnected words.

But Dapper Dave’s dislike also may stem from Robert’s role as the unofficial press secretary to HM Treasury.

Indeed such is the regularity of his BBC scoops, direct from the Chancellors desk (it would allegedly seem), that FT Alphaville have taken to refering to his Blog as alternative newswire: Pestowire.

As they put it (with a large dollop of irony):

 ”Pestowire: Top News from Top Sources. The BBC’s Business Editor, Robert Peston, has played in important role keeping the British public fully informed during these difficult times.”

There is no doubt that he is well briefed, so when he says that Banks ask chancellor for capital, HBoS shares fall by 41.5% and RBS by 39.5%.  No amount of denial by a knight of the realm such as Fred Goodwin can counter the accepted gospel of Saint Robert, patron saint of truth and light in these dark times.

Not even hedge funds caused that sort of damage.

For what it’s worth he is probably telling it as it is, but is it really in the public’s interest to spook the markets further, just so he and the Beeb can have another scoop? 

The government for their part, in a admirable effort to cut costs, might have outsourced the role of the Chancellor’s Press Secretary, but are now in danger of creating a story bigger than the news itself.

Bring back Alistair Campbell all is forgiven.

In a recent article (FT 29/7/08), Gideon Rackman, argued that clichés are in effect truisms, based upon the received wisdom of crowds; or to put it another way, you are more likely to get the right answer asking the audience than phoning a friend.

On this basis if I write a blog full of clichés, it is bound to be more accurate than one without them, so here goes:

On the 9^th August we reached the tipping point of the Credit Crunch when BNP Paribas effectively declared that two of their hedge funds were sicker than a dead parrot.

A year on we would appear to be in a perfect storm, but how did we get here? Are we at the beginning of the end of our troubles yet, or merely the end of the beginning?

By Autumn it was clear that the good ship Great Returns From property was holed below the water line and retail investors, always late to the party, rushed for the life rafts of this rapidly sinking ship.

By December brave investors had stepped up to the plate to buy from the funds who were forced to sell, but by January it was clear that they had caught a falling knife and the market in New Year was flatter than a dead cat bounce.

Buying investments based on last years’ values is clearly like driving only using your rear view mirror.

Any hopes of a resurrection following Easter, where dashed when the green shoots of recovery, being nurtured by the agent community, were left withered in the ground by cold blast of Arctic realism blowing into MIPIM with the banking community.

The collapse of Bear Sterns shortly thereafter showed that no one was too big to fail.

Through early summer until now a Mexican Standoff has continued, with sellers either not able or willing to put their heads above the parapet, to be shot at by the big guns of the opportunity funds.

The elephant in the room is of course the question how the banks will react, now there appears to be no relief in sight (not even in September).

Dawnay Day has shown that it’s not always the banks problem if you owe them £2bn.

Come the autumn we’ll be ready and willing to run a few ideas up the flagpole to see who salutes, but for the time being we’re happy to wait for blood on the streets.