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 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.

It has been a masterful fight-back by the big banks. We the paying public can't do anything much except admit defeat and settle back for the next set of bills. In the meantime, perhaps, we should try and think of a name for the new economic system, which certainly isn't capitalism ... The most accurate term would probably be "bankocracy".

Economics as a discipline has in effect become the study of capitalism. The two are taken as the same subject.

The person doing the worrying experiences it as a form of love; the person being worried about experiences it as a form of control.

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

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.