Giggle

This is doing the rounds of the trading desks in The City yesterday... enjoy:

Subject: Statement by Soc. gen.

FRIENDS of rogue trader Jerome Kerviel last night blamed his $7 billion losses on unbearable levels of stress brought on by a punishing 30 hour week.

Kerviel hid his November losses in a batch of wonderfully fresh croissant

Kerviel was known to start work as early as nine in the morning and still be at his desk at five or even five-thirty, often with just an hour and a half for lunch.

One colleague said: "He was, how you say, une workaholique. I have a family and a mistress so I would leave the office at around 2pm at the latest, if I wasn't on strike. "But Jerome was tied to that desk. One day I came back to the office at 3pm because I had forgotten my stupid little hat and there he was, fast asleep on the photocopier.

"At first I assumed he had been having sex with it, but then I remembered he had been working for almost six hours."

As the losses mounted, Kerviel tried to conceal his bad trades by covering them with an intense red wine sauce, later switching to delicate pastry horns. At one point he managed to dispose of dozens of transactions by hiding them inside vol-au-vent cases and staging a fake reception.

Last night a spokesman for Sócíété Générálé denied that Kerviel was over worked, insisting he lost the money after betting that the French were about to stop being rude, lazy, and arrogant.

L'hiver viendra

J'entends le loup, le renard et la belette,
J'entends le loup et le renard chanter,
La jument de Michao a passé dans le pré,
La jument de Michao et son petit poulain,
A passé dans le pré et mangé tout le foin,
L'hiver viendra les gars, l'hiver viendra,
La jument de Michao, elle s'en repentira.

Brrr... L'hiver is indeed viendraing. Bloody freezing cold this morning and it's now got to the stage where it's dark when I haul myself out of the cave at 6am and it will be dark when I get home as well; at least we're not yet at the stage where it's dark when I get to and leave the office... I hate that, makes me feel like one of those pit ponies that used to work in the mines and only ever saw daylight at the weekends.

Speaking of ponies and my juments in particular they are starting to turn fluffy so that's a sure sign that winter is indeed on its way. Time to break out the rugs I bought in the sale. At least I got sorted out for foin, bought a hundred bales at the weekend which with what's left of last years should see me through to spring.

Now I just need to find out what a pré is and stop the girlies going into it. Don't want any repentiraing going on chez Dracunculus.