And taken over by Lloyds.

Thank fook! at least this will get rid of those friggin adverts with the black bloke with the Dr Crippen glasses and his chinky mate.

Halifax hasn't gone bust. It's just been taken over.

It was insolvent this morning. By any business measure or legal position, thats gone bust. Had they not been taken over the administrators would have been in.

So does that mean Halifax itself as we've known it is dead?

HBOS as still operating but the share prices had dropped 56 per cent the last time I saw, so it wasn't exactly great. Still, Halifax has been waivering ever since Abbey overtook it after Santander bought that and Alliance & Leicester out. It's been going on for about a month, they haven't been the biggest mortgage lender for a while but it's hardly surprising given the current market.

And chinky? Egh. Sounds worse than nigger in my book, more out of idiocy. I acknowledge the sentiments re: Howard and chum though, I hope they fuck off and die rather quickly.

Does anyone really think that Chinky is a term of abuse? I used it an an abbreviation, no different to Yank, Taff, Jock, Frog, Eytie, rosbif etc

As the bard Alan Partridge once said ... Chinky isn't racist because it's a type of food.

I was disappointed they didn't have tiddly winks at the Beijing Olympics.

According to a mate who works at the Halifax Howard was dropped from future commercials a couple of months because he portrayed a cheery outlook which was wrong in the current climate. This was after I used the same looking on the bright side argument!


A chinese guy here at work doesn't like the word chinky. I used it in all innocence once saying I fancied a chinkys for my tea when he was in earshot. He said he didn't like that word so I have never used it since.

He's a touchy get! Mind you I did something similar with a ramjam down here. Touchy aren't they

What about saying chinkyboo, is that ok?

What makes a refreshing change, is for the first time, actually seeing the banks suffering first instead of everybody else cop it while they rode the storm, ..... as was always the case in the past.

If they are offended at being called a chink, which is like a shortened version of chinse.

Can i get offended at being called a 'brit'?

Not quite the same Mutters although I do call 'er indoors a stroppy paki sometimes but then she calls me a pasty twat.

Daft racist!

Racism's funny.

What you mean Howard Brown who was in an episode of The Office and Thomas from Leeds?

I hope the latter doesn't support Leeds United !

But he might get invited to do the adverts for this new company though. And if Halifax technically isn't dead, then it's still the Halifax and it can still do these adverts.

The adverts must have been quite popular if they've been going for a number of years.

I hope the shareholders are getting EXTRA for their inconvenience.

Just for you, Mr I:

Stop creepin' up to the boss. Ya big fantasist!

Indeed it was

It's a pity Halifax Town aren't in the League, then we could take the proverbial out of their bank !

oh yes, what a jolly micky take we could have then eh!

They'd be shaking there fists at us all day

Geek

And your point being?

The bloke gets right on my tits and that chinky even more so. He should get back to sending out rip off letters for £35 every time someone goes 50p overdrawn and the other one should get back to mucky marys.

We could all wave our LLoyds TSB cheque books at them. What fun.

Seriously though, it's not funny.

As I say, it's a shame they are in the Blue Square, somebody could write a humourous chant involving the words "Extra, "Howard Brown", "Halifax" and "bankrupt".

Why isn't it funny, is it because we're all sick to death of all the global financial problems or what?

Or maybe because us in the real world with jobs, mortgages etc are actually affected by this shite.

You'd best hope that daddy can still afford your pocket money.

Better still, his daddy might sell him to me.

Boy for sale!

The HBOS share price fell through the floor yesterday morning as you know and only recovered when the merger was made public. As soon as that snippet of info was put into the public domain, those with the money are buying. That is half the problem with the way the market is set up,,, speculators can make or break an organisation that looks to be bullet proof. Oil price are an example of them suits in the city creaming it in.

– That the word l use on a Saturday night when lm going for a chinkie’s at muckie Marrys in Murry Street -

Very funny Cornelius, very funny.

Excuse me but my job in the future in the global financial market could be under threat from what happens today.

We're all in the same boast and how we deal with it, is that we laugh about to make sure it doesn't get on top of us.

Otherwise, it's felt really miserable to be alive this week after what's gone on.

I thought recessions were only supposed to happen in the 70S, with Pools bottom of the Fourth Division and the 1973 oil crisis and three-day weeks and that.

Compared to the 70s, we're living in luxury at the moment.

I'm all for equalities and that right, but I can't get with these do-gooders who say that the standards required to pass exams nowadays are no easier than they were in the past.

Unless somebody is gonna tell me that they've started to let retards into University since we've moved into the 21st Century?

Why do I feel that sentence was aimed directally at me?

I love boasts, me.

Paranoia?

Bunker attitudes towards students ?

I meant boat !

Bloody keyboard !

I'm unaware of this "Bunker attitude" to which you refer having been a Uni student myself in the past.

I just can't reconcile your comments about your future job in finance, laughing about the current economic climate and recession being something that only happened in the 1970s etc with an intelligent being.

Look we have to laugh about these things or they get on top of us.

It means no disrespect at all to those who are feeling the pinch because of this...we all are !!!!!

How exactly is it affecting you? Seriously?

I can assure you all that the Chinks don't give two hoots what you call them as long as you keep making them rich. They call me all sorts of stuff that in the UK would be deemed racist. Like them I don't care either, nor do they care if I pull the corners of my eyes and goof my teeth out. They just respond with a gesture to say how big my nose is compared to theirs. Then we all piss ourselves laughing, it's a celebration of the difference.

The main difference is that they have bigger priorities, don't really give a fook about name-calling, haven't written a raft of laws about it, don't have a pecking order or people paid large salaries to decide that yes you can say c unt on the telly now but you mustn't shorten Pakistani or you wil be imprisoned.

Maybe I live in a totalitarian state but I tell you, I've never noticed.

A good thing you found out about all this in time. Why, you might have died without ever having lived in China

Unibond League I think, not Blue Square

At the moment, it isn't really affecting us that badly because we've always we've careful savers anyway.
We had the great fortune of being able to pay off two credit cards with a large bill that we've never spent big on anyway - it's just normal domestic debt.

If things were really bad, we wouldn't have ben able to pay those credit cards off.

Credit cards are evil and should be banned.

But it's not a laughing matter for people who are affected, like my mate who got made redundant last week and whose wife works at the Halifax H.O. and is currently the only one in the house bringing in a wage to pay the mortgage and feed the kids.

Ripper, why didn't you say at the start ?

If it felt that bad to you, why didn't you just PM me and I would have stopped the Halifax gags.

That's right, it wouldn't be news, but if we think we're doomed, then we will be doomed.

It's best just to ride ot the storm, everything will be better after it.

Because that is just an example of why it's not a laughing matter when the economy goes down the toilet.

With respect, as I know you are only young, you will learn that as you progress through life.

It's one thing not having enough money to go down the pub as often as you'd like or to not be able to afford to go to Pools, but feeding and keeping a roof over the head of your family are the most important things and not to be laughed about too flippantly.

But how do we deal with it emotionally, if it causes us such pain, if we can't find a way of releasing that pain.