About 12 months ago, the RBS led consortium paid the market rate for ABN Amro, outbidding Barclays in the process.

Barclays have now paid £1bn for Lehmans US investment banking arm, catapulting them into the big league at a fraction of the price.

It is scary to consider that earlier in the week, £54bn would have bought Barclays, Lloyds and HBoS (LBos?) and Alliance and Leicester.  With the small change left over they could have that small grocery chain Marks and Spencer.

Of course the market has fallen further this week, so they probably could now buy British Land too.

It would appear that most people are now back and like truffle pigs are digging around in the mire looking for green shoots of recovery.

I am doing my bit; sprinkling Prozac on my Cheerios every morning and only reading Anatole Kaletsky’s column in The Times helps.  I also try to go by the maxim of “If you can’t say anything nice don’t say anything at all”; mother would be so proud.

In fact to paraphrase Churchill, I was staring to feel that we had reached the end of the beginning; the optimist in me was hoping that we could start talking about the “Post Credit Crunch” world due to Mr “Hank” Paulson’s generosity at the weekend.

Unfortunatley my panglosian view, however, has been undermined by the slow motion accident that is Lehman Bros.

Not only is this a shame, in that it only serves to undermine fragile confidence that was building, but we know a lot of good people there and it can’t be much fun.

I can’t believe that Lehman’s, per say, are markedly any worse than many other investment banks. 

The financial markets seem to be operating within a playground mentality: a gang of kids will always pick on the weediest one, because at least it’s not them recieving a wedgy.

Now they have succeeded in destroying the Lehman’s franchise, who’s next?