17 JANUARY 1998, page 25

Roller Coaster

I AM a steam traction man myself, but I had to admire the Rolls-Royces and Bent- leys parked at Towcester while their owners plotted to bid for Rolls-Royce Motors. They think......

City And Suburban

Here's a new threat to Lloyd's endangered species market forces will force their way in CHRISTOPHER FILDES T he members of Lloyd's of London are retiring, hurt. Their numbers......

Unsafe, Unsteady

STORES of value in Asia continue to leak. The latest is Peregrine, Hong Kong's investment bank, which has been run over by an Indonesian taxi company called Steady Safe. There......

Dassault Course

HOW exciting the life of a financial jour- nalist must be, if you work in Paris. You are just thinking about lunch when a Mirage jet screams overhead, you dive beneath your......

Paper Money

IT is worth remembering at such times that troubles and recoveries come round in cir- cles. Not so long ago, Indonesia suddenly found itself knee-deep in forged rupiah notes.......

Terminal Error

EUROPE'S presidency has strange side- effects. Last time round John Major had an enormous table made, so that at his Edin- burgh summit everybody could sit round it, thus......