The financial system in its current condition poses an existential threat to Western democracy far exceeding any terrorist threat.

It can be a way of knowledge, a path, an inspiration, a Tao, an ordering, a memory, a fantasy, a seduction, a prayer, a summoning, an incantation murmured under the breath as the torchlights sink lower and the forest looms taller and the wolves howl louder and the fire prepares for its submission to the encroaching dark.

In other words, RBS had its origins in a failed speculation, a bail-out, and a financial crash so big it helped destroy Scotland's status as a separate nation.

But knowing that you had gone wrong, and knowing how you had gone wrong, were not the same thing as knowing how to put it right.

It's as if people used the invention of seat belts as an opportunity to take up drunk driving.

The City is, in terms of its basic functioning, a far-off country of which we know little.

The standard personality type for a writer is a shy megalomaniac.