Nogger's Blog

06/07/11 -- Like a bad smell, eurozone debt problems keep coming back. Today it's Portugal causing all the angst with a surprise downgrade in it's credit rating to "junk" by Moody's.

Who's next? There's a disorderly queue forming, and I'm not sure that Merkel and Sarkozy have deep enough pockets or the stomach to bail out the lot of them. The euro is lower on the back of this news.

China has upped base rates by a quarter in another attempt to stifle inflation. That's the third rise this year.

The Bank of Moscow has been given the biggest bail-out in Russian history after a takeover bid uncovered bad loans to the tune of USD9 billion on its books, say the BBC.

Just imagine how many other little secrets the rest of the global banking sector are hiding, and what would happen if even a fraction of them came to light. "Oh, it gives me the willies," said one fund manager.

The UK barley harvest is bumbling along. Chris Tye at Dalmark reports that they've had their first sample (variety: Carrat) received into the lab today and "it's over 70Kg/hl" bushel weight and a "very nice looking sample" he says. "There's also talk of barley doing 3t/acre near Newmarket," he adds.

Virgin and Lloyds Banking Group have joined Ford, Renault and the Halifax in pulling advertising from the disgraced News of the Screws. Richard Branson doing something right for once shocker.