'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.'

I wasn't actually going to write anything today, because it's the Sabbath and God says you're not supposed to work. And then I remembered I'm not Jewish. There was also the fact that the weekend is precious time for Packer and Pies, as Pies is allowed to not be in the office for two whole consecutive days (three in fact this weekend, as it's Moon Festival time, meaning Monday is a bank holiday). Then the third, somewhat more common reason was that I wasn't feeling hugely inspired.

So instead, I thought I'd share a little bit of what I'm feeling at the moment based on some highly irritating factors that are way beyond my control. Hopefully I've avoided it so far, but I reckon it must be quite difficult, especially if you've been writing a blog for a decent period of time, not to view it, or unconsciously use it as your own personal shrink; somewhere that you just empty your thoughts and feelings onto the page to help your peace of mind and stop them buzzing around inside your head like wasps in a jam jar.

So in the interests of trying to not put you off coming back to this blog, I'll keep it short. Those of you in the know will already be aware, as will any of you that have Bloomberg TV running 24/7 (fingers crossed that number is in the single digits), that Lehman Brothers, the investment bank that Colin works for, our Hong Kong raison d'être, is in severe trouble.

Again, those of you in the field will know exactly why (far better than a pleb like me), but in a nutshell, Lehman are heavily involved in that crazy sub-prime nonsense which gave birth to the most overused phrase of recent times: the credit crunch. Due to that, Lehman have made huge losses, and as a result, the two most important groups of people, the dudes that trade with Lehman and the chaps that buy shares in Lehman have lost confidence and are no longer wanting to do either.

As I type, the big cheese, the top dog and all the other fat cats are locked away in talks with various other banks, desperately trying to persuade them to buy Lehman, otherwise that's it. They go bust. No passing Go; certainly no collecting £200.

All of which has meant that since Colin first told me the share price was down to about $4 yesterday morning - which, in layman's terms, is bad - I've had that weird gnawing uneasy niggling in my stomach. A little bit like feeling as though one of your kidneys is a bit itchy, but you can't get in there to give it a good scratch.

So, not wanting to make it sound like the apocalypse is imminent, we're trying not to think about it too much, as there really is nothing that we can do. Except wait and see if Bank of America (Pies thought he'd seen the back of them in 2006), or a consortium of saviours salivate sufficiently at the prospect of Lehman at a knockdown price.

I'll keep you posted!

title source: Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, 1859
picture source: http://www.themed-homedecor.com/Chinese-Decorating.html