Red Squirrel given the boot

Cute, isn't he? Did you know that squirrels are left or right handed just like us? And that they have the same hair colour gene as foxes or indeed red-haired humans?

I have to say that this little critter has rocketed down in my estimation recently...

I have a house in Kingussie in the Scottish Highlands. Red squirrels often scurry through our garden to and from nearby pine trees. We had recently seen a squirrel running along our wall much more frequently than was usual. We had also put up a hanging basket of nuts for the birds but... yes, you guessed it. Little swine. But that was nothing compared to what he got up to next.

Two days before I was due to go on a ski-ing holiday, I looked out my ski boots that were stored in a cupboard in the loft. I was horrified to find that the inner lining of the boots had been ripped to shreds by sharp little claws, a nearby towel had been ripped up to be used as bedding and the boot was full of the very nuts that I had left out for the birds. A very comfortable three hundred pound pair of boots ruined by a squirrel, probably the very squirrel that I had admired running along the wall. His little claws had also ripped through my wife's best ski suit and nearly perforated a heating pipe. Little monster. I have now fitted one of these rodent repeller noise machines which hopefully will see him off.

So is he cute? Of course he is.

Northern Rock is going to help you

Yes, the UK Government was caught between a Rock and a Hard Virgin when it was 'forced' to nationalise Northern Rock Building Society (turned bank) this week. Tony Blair would be turning in, or on, his spit to think Nationalisation is again Labour Policy. That is, if he could remember where the UK is, or what relevance it has to him now.

Rumour has it (or rather I think) that Tony Blair accepted a bet as a student to see if he could turn the Labour party into the Tory Party without anyone noticing. He achieved it. I like to think of him as Thatcher in a Stetson.

Was it necessary to nationalise NR? Could the government have done more to identify a realistic buyer? Surely they needed look no further than their own cash-for-peerships to identify a favourable bid. Obviously Branson was never a runner - he had to find some way of paying for all the jet fuel surcharges he had to repay.

I've never understood why other countries, particularly the UK, adopt USA economic models. Even a rudimentary understanding of economics shows that the sub-prime market is unsustainable.

Isn't it nice to be this grumpy?