Archive for March, 2008

Back in London

March 23rd, 2008

On Friday my time in the United States came to an end and I departed at 9am (getting up at 5am wasn’t fun) and flew back to London. This time there was no free upgrade, and while I tried to get an exit row seat for extra legroom I couldn’t (at least without paying) so I was stuck with an aisle seat in economy.

Fortunately this wasn’t as bad as I was expecting as I was able to stretch out into the aisle a little and didn’t have to fold myself up too much. Additionally the small child that was seated a few rows in front of me was well behaved so I didn’t have to put up with a screaming kid all the way home, which was nice.

Now I have to get used to the little things in London again. Night buses instead of trains, using my oyster card rather than my metrocard (and not having to worry about topping it up manually) and the differences with the etiquette in bars with respect to tipping. I’m sure I’ll soon slip back into the usual ways though.

For now, however, it’s time to get on with the mass of unpacking and washing that I need to do before work starts again on Tuesday.

 

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Bear Stearns

March 17th, 2008

This last week saw Bear Stearns, a US bank, fall into the same situation as Northern Rock in the UK and require a cash injection from the Fed (with JP Morgan Chase being involved at some stage in this, although a couple of us at work couldn’t quite work out how).

Well, I guess we can see where JPM were getting involved now, as today it’s hit the press that they are to buy out BSC for just $2 a share. This is a fraction of the price that BSC were trading at at the close of business on Friday ($30 a share, which was a 47% loss on Friday alone).

This is going to particularly hurt people, such as English billionaire Joe Lewis who owned 7% of BSC, which he had picked up at a cost of $860m, back when the share price was over $100… so I’m sure that that will sting a bit. Of course, he’s a billionaire who now lives in the Bahamas so it can’t be going too badly for him.

It’s interesting to see that this situation was solved much faster than the equivalent Northern Rock situation in the UK, which dragged on for months before the government finally decided to nationalise the bank, and it’s probably going to be for the best that the situation has been resolved sooner rather than later, although we’ll see what happens with the markets when they open.

 

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America – Part 3

March 16th, 2008

Given that this is the start of my final few days here in the United States, I figured it time for another blog (that and I’m avoiding revising for the Java test tomorrow morning).

The last couple of weeks have flown by, and I’ve got up to a fair amount of stuff, including going to the previously mentioned NBA game between the New Jersey Nets and the San Antonio Spurs, which was good fun. I also went to an NHL game between the New Jersey Devils and the Tampa Bay Lightning, which was more fun as the crowd seemed to get into it more and while the basketball had a couple of moments of skill, the hockey game was far more entertaining overall (especially with there being a couple of fights).

Last weekend I also managed to finally do some sightseeing, taking a wander around Manhattan to  see a number of the landmarks – although I still haven’t done all of them, or any of the museums, and that’s not likely to change any time soon.

I’ve also fully experienced the problem of being a guy trying to go out in New York when a few of us were told it would be $700 for the 6 of us (3 guys and 3 girls) to go into the club… needless to say we declined and went elsewhere which was far cheaper and probably better.

Still, I suppose I best do some work and maybe head to the office as part of that.

 

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