11 OCTOBER 1997, page 32

City And Suburban

The fib that never fails to seduce investors: 'This time it's different' (oh, no, it isn't) CHRISTOPHER FILDES ONLY the other day, everybody believed what the market was saying:......

Now You See It

NOW I know what Gordon Brown and his small team of chosen sidekicks mean by transparency. For this I must thank the can- did cameras of ITV which this week gave us We Are the......

Break A Leg

THE Stock Exchange must tell itself that a disastrous rehearsal means a good first night. Then it can look forward to its new style of trading when the curtain goes up on Monday......

Gazza Goes Off

THIS time last year Barclays was busy boosting BZW — scattering seven-figure cheques like toffee papers as it hired and fired staff, renting a marble penitentiary in DocIdands,......

The Oozlum Bank

IT IS clear to me that Martin Taylor, Bar- clays' chief executive, is evolving a financial version of the Oozlum Bird. This explains why Barclays is now flying round and round......

Cash And Supercash

BEFORE our eyes and ears just now is a superb example of what Smith called super- money. This is a currency printed in the stock market when times are good and enabling its......