I was worrying as I usually do, about how our poor old *ankers (insert the consonant of your choice here), were getting on with all this unfair criticism of money laundering, flogging debt, and fending of rather unfair criticisms for awarding themselves millions as compensation, while they kick us out of our homes, so I looked up some finance humour to give them a few laughs, while they work out new ways to fiddle the 100s of millions we have given them to play with...

How do you define optimism? A banker who irons 5 shirts on a Sunday.

Resolving to surprise her husband, an investment banker’s wife pops by his office. She finds him in an unorthodox position, with his secretary sitting in his lap. Without hesitation, he starts dictating, “…and in conclusion, gentlemen, credit crunch or no credit crunch, I cannot continue to operate this office with just one chair!”

What’s the difference between Investment Bankers and London Pigeons? The Pigeons are still capable of making deposits on new BMW’s

What’s the difference between an investment banker and a large pizza? A large pizza can feed a family of four.

The last time Iceland had a crash like this, aisle three was closed all day.

I had a cheque returned earlier. “Insufficient Funds” Mine or the banks?

What have Icelandic banks and an Icelandic streaker got in common? They both have frozen assets

Money talks. Trouble is, mine only knows one word - goodbye.

What is a banker’s favourite chocolate bar? A credit crunchie!

Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber said he has accepted "mission impossible" as he attempts to win the Eurovision song contest for the UK. The composer of musical hits including the Phantom of the Opera, Evita, and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, will pen the UK's Eurovision entry and search for the perfect voice to perform it in Moscow next year.

However, in a competition dogged by accusations of 'bloc-voting', which led presenter Terry Wogan to threaten walking out on the competition he first hosted 35 years ago (unfortunately he wants to stay), Lord Lloyd Webber has admitted it will be his toughest challenge yet. The composer will embark on a televised talent search for the vocalist and hopefuls have until November 21 (Ah so that's why doh !), to send their auditions to the BBC website. So we are to be subject to another Televised Farce to swell Mr LW's already obscene bank account, what shall we call it ? spot the loser ?

In order to save Mr Lloyd Webber having to look at even more atrocious and screeching people desperate to be slagged off, (spare a thought for the viewers too guv...) here's my Euro offering song, so if you can do better, why ?

There is a land called Eurovision
a land of mystery
they are bereft of singers,
and a lack of melody
they have a weird obsession
with booms and bangs galore
they wear the weirdest clothes you've seen
and stamp upon the floor
Italians took the vowels
no consonants are there,
Cos all the blinking Eastern bloc
have taken them all there.. SZKSKSKZ !!

Chorus:

We don't want to go to Europe
Please don't make me sing there
Please don't make me go to Europe
'Cos the Eurovision's blaeeergh !...

Mr Webber sounds the clarion call
your country needs you there
so he can go on TV (again!)
and bore us stupid there...
In Moscow they are happy
the cossaks they are fine
they don't want us British to attend
'cos all we do is bloody whine..

We don't want to go to Europe
Please don't make me sing there
Please don't make me go to Europe
'Cos the Eurovision's blaeeergh !...

All about Iceland (And why we won't get our savings back from them).

Icelandic women don't take the husband's name when they marry, chiefly because the husband doesn't have a family name to take, and because they don't have surnames, Icelanders are listed in the telephone directory alphabetically by first name. There is no directory enquiries, it would be a complete waste of time.. everyone is named Thor...

Because they don't have surnames, it is not appropriate to call an Icelander by Mr. or Ms. Almost all Icelanders use the first name with everyone, including the president of Iceland, appropriately called Thor... currently in the Seychelles drumming up a bit of business by flogging off some surplus glaciers... and you thought it was global warming ? The English word geyser comes from Icelandic (perhaps the only Icelandic word imported into English). Geysir is the name of a famous geyser in Iceland, it's a Geyis Geyser, got it ? (Or it may be a Geyser called Gesir).

Icelanders speak the Icelandic language, which is used only in Iceland and among Icelandic expatriates chiefly in Scandinavia and North America, (what point is there speaking it anywhere else ?). Icelandics don't migrate to Britain, about the only thing in their favour really.... they're frightened of the dark.

Icelandic is very similar to old Norwegian (Of course you knew that), of about 1,000 years ago, they have 2,000 words for snow, and frost, and there are no other topics in Iceland.. "Snow today Thor ?", "Snow tomorrow.." "What's the weekend weather forecast.... ?" There are about 270,000 Icelanders in the country. About half of them live in the capital Reykjavik and its suburbs, the other half don't, no-one knows where they are.... except they can't spell Reykjavik.

Iceland is the world's oldest democracy. Its parliament (Althingi) was founded about 1,000 years ago, by Thor as a matter of fact.... Iceland has vast amounts of water because it rains so much, which is a fact that boggles the mind somewhat, rain causes all this water ?

Icelandic water is so clean and pure that it is piped into the city and to the kitchen taps in the home without any treatment (no chlorination needed). Because of its bountiful water supply and many rivers, Iceland has vast reserves of hydroelectric power, mainly because they forgot to put up power lines..... So they make do with whale blubber candles.

Iceland has no army, navy, or air force, their country isn't worth invading basically.... It does have a Coast Guard, and most of Welsh council savings...... Just in case you missed it, an Iceland stab at telling a joke, guaranteed in Iceland anyway to have them in fits of hysterical laughter, between snow storms......

Child 1: In a race across the Channel between an English cat and a French cat, who wins?

Child 2: I don't know....

Child 1: the English cat!

Child 2: ..why?

Child 1: un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq...

If you feel you can top that....

I was reading on one site amongst mutual cyber-maniacs, and one topic was about Duck/Orange Pate' which triggered off a wealth of knowledgeable comments from friends I though only knew with extreme difficulty, how to order a pizza from the nearest take-away. "Should be mixed with generous helpings of tomatoe sauce with a side-serving of baked beans, in these frugal times", was one educated comment I read... (I tend to mix in educated circles, not with the hoi polloi).

My food expertise only extends to dairylea on toast, assuming I can find where the bread gets hidden. I'm alway suss of Pate' it looks like something the cow left behind..... I had to watch the grinning ninnies on TV who do these cookery programs wiv 'erbs and grass thrown in wiv 'rustic' nosh, and see if I am missing something, and if alternatives exist to chips..... and to think my old dad was a waiter in a swish London Hotel at one time serving the gentry... you know, them people that have 7 knives and forks/spoons every meal, is it in case they drop one, or are the just showing off ?

All I know was what me dad told me, start on the outside work your way in or something... I tend to get thrown with the ice cream or sorbet, they give you a fork AND a spoon or something, or is that the soup ? so I end up with the last course with two forks and 4 spoons for some reason.... there I am hacking away at me steak with them...... I tried watching a cookery show, it was quite beyond me, they talked about kitchens, saucepans, grills, pasta and all sorts of weird and wonderful things, like salt/peppers from the middle east, I didn't know existed..

I thought salt was a killer ? perhaps if you wash it down with some Patagonian lager at threepence a gallon you don't notice... they seem to use quite a lot of it, that, and make snide comments about Mrs Beeton... who died of obesity from partridge puddings and pickled sow with buttered pigeon.... they don't like Delia either cos she has a rubbish football team, and cooks food people actually eat... I have ordered her latest book on "How to boil an egg", now that IS something useful. I just hope she does a large print version...

I learnt an interesting fact about beluga, which is as I understand it fish eggs, which is rather an UN-PC thing these days according to the SPS the sturgeon protection society, which sees it as fish genocide or something. How did it get its name ? apparently long ago in downtown Vladivostok in some cheap dive, it was served as a delicacy to a Russian bigwig on a slice of ryvita, he took a mouthful and the threw up over the table exclaiming "Beluga !" which roughly translated means "I am suing you for the dry-cleaning bill", another view was an Armenian Jew, in Tel Aviv had some and promptly "Beluga'd.." over the table... anyway.

I think the chances of me cooking a joint of beef or something borders on the realms of utter fantasy, how would you get it in the oven ? You learn lots of stuff to be sure, e.g. if, you forget to peel your spuds, then just call them rustic and everyone is happy, you suddenly become trendy and everyone wants one, I think I can manage that. Amazingly, none of these TV chefs actually COOK in their own take aways, they can't fit it in between TV appearances, so you go to their restaurant and get some third-rater,with a fag in their mouth, is cooking you beans on toast (With a warm side salad), and serving you coffee in a thimble.

Another tip is to ask for your meat to be 'rare', apprently this entails only cooking the outside and leaving the inside raw and bleeding, I'm not too sure about that. I think a joint of Lamb still bleating at me would be off-putting.

One bloke cooking with a suit on (I thought they wore pinnies and silly hats ?), and a face a rather bright orange, was enthusing about some unprintable kipper from the north sea, that is lovely cooked with egg pasta or something with a load of lemon grass thrown on the top. A lot seems to be vegetarian country, they should all be out in the fields chewing grass, and when they are fat enough we will cook and eat them.

I hate healthy food, most people that eat it look like they would blow away in the wind, and are very boring and patronizing people.. they usually end up clothes horses.

You often get some silly tart nibbling away at the grub at the end, clearly there 'cos the interesting people have better things to do, trying to name-drop, "Einstein once came to tea, he liked my implant, and spam fritters... curved ones.." obviously terrified a calorie is going to settle somewhere, and her life as a nobody on TV, really will disappear.. or it will entail an expensive visit to the Botox clinic, or health spar, the upside being she can sell her life story as a non-entity and how an inch on her hips led to the total breakdown of her perfume endorsement empire, her shopping trips 4 times a day, and flashing her knickers in night clubs twice a week, and her feckless and bald loser of a footy playing layabout, who can't afford a razor, has moved on to size point 5 or something... apparently it is about eating a lot less but smothered in green stuff no self respecting herbivore would take a sniff at.

I also noticed when they do 'sweets', they smother the stuff with icing, fried and caramelized bananas (You know, the ones that did it for Elvis), and sugar with enough heart attacks in it, to fill a medium size hospital ward, and keep a diabetic clinic going for a month of sundays.... Apparently, less is more, so I am going to open a restaurant called Chez Merv and just serve them empty plates at £30 a throw.... and charge them for their own water...I have to come around to the view healthy food is actually bad for your health, it's only healthy if you avoid eating it.

I was comforted by a farming science paper online that suggested, researchers monitored a 100 pigs, then declared, "Pigs have a life of Riley, and actually look forward to being killed at the end of it to satisfy our hunger, they feel it's a useful and productive life they lead...", hear hear, pass the pork chops

We live in stressful times, if the credit crunchers aren't eating your wallet, someone is turning out fake £1 coins with "Made in Ponytwaun" printed on the side of them and dated 2011. I was advised to wear bracelets with crystals on to set the mood, and ward off evil spirits like George Brown, colours do it so they tell me, blue for calmness, black for vitality (?) or copper to avoid rust disease, but I usually just order the house white....

Some off-beat humor, so if you are of a politically correct persuasion then you are an ideal candidate for my stab at psyche humour... and an obvious candidate for the rubber -walled fraternity anyway... You WILL be offended so best to log out now.... righteous indignation is fine for chapel, just not on my blog OK ?

There are three guys going through an exit interview at a hospital. The doctor says he can release them if they can answer the simple math problem: What is 8 times 5? The first patient says, "139." The second one says, "Wednesday." The third says, "What a stupid question. It's obvious: The answer is 40." The doctor is delighted. He gives the guy his release. As the man is leaving, the doctor asks how he came up with the correct answer so quickly. "It was easy, Doc. I just divided Wednesday by 139."

Managing stress is a bugbear for most of us, it's that, or throwing darts at Jordan and waiting for the big bang in the silicon galaxy..... Try, picturing yourself near a stream, the birds are singing in the crisp, cool mountain air. Nothing can bother you here, no one knows this secret place. You are in total seclusion from that place called the world. The soothing sound of a gentle waterfall fills the air with a cascade of serenity, and multi-coloured butterflies flit to and fro in the gentle breeze (oops, nearly nodded off myself there..). The water is clear. You can easily make out the face of the person whose head you're holding under the water. There now, feeling better?

After just a few years of marriage, filled with constant arguments, a young man and his wife decided the only way to save their marriage was to try therapy. They had been at each others throats for some time and felt that this was their last straw. When they arrived at the therapist's office, the therapist jumped right in and opened the floor for discussion. "What seems to be the problem?" Immediately, the husband held his long face down without anything to say. On the other hand, the wife began talking 90 miles and hour describing all the wrongs within their marriage.

After 5 - - 10 - - 15 minutes of listening to the wife, the therapist went over to her, picked her up by her shoulders, kissed her passionately for several minutes, and sat her back down. Afterwards, the wife sat there - speechless. He looked over at the husband who was staring in disbelief at what had happened. The therapist spoke to the husband, "Your wife NEEDS that at least twice a week!" The husband scratched his head and replied, "I can have her here on Tuesdays and Thursdays."


0800-PSYCHLINE

Hello, Welcome to the Psychline.
If you are obsessive-compulsive, please press 1 repeatedly.
If you are co-dependent, please ask someone to press 2.
If you have multiple personalities, please press 3, 4, 5 and 6.
If you are paranoid-delusional, we know who you are and what you want. Just stay on the line so we can trace the call.
If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a little voice will tell you which number to press.
If you are depressed, it doesn't matter which number you press. No one will answer.

Two elderly couples were enjoying friendly conversation when one of the men asked the other, "Fred, how was the memory clinic you went to last month?" "Outstanding," Fred replied. "They taught us all the latest psychological techniques - visualization, association - it made a huge difference for me." "That's great! What was the name of the clinic?" Fred went blank He thought and thought, but couldn't remember. Then a smile broke across his face and he asked, "What do you call that red flower with the long stem and thorns?" "You mean a rose?" "Yes, that's it!" He turned to his wife. . ."Rose, what was the name of that clinic?"

Your thought for the day: One out of every four people is suffering from some form of mental illness. Check three friends. If they're OK, then it's you.

Flags will fly at St Fagan’s National History Museum today to commemorate the Welsh hero who united a nation. The tributes marking Owain Glyndwr Day today, will also be hoisted at Caerphilly Castle to mark the day Glyndwr proclaimed himself Prince of Wales on September 16,1400, in a rebellion against the English. Alun Ffred Jones Minster for Heritage said “ If it wasn’t for Owain Glyndwr, Wales would certainly lack the recognition it has as a country today.”