Charles Spencer

Box of delights | 22 October 2011

issue 22 October 2011

I don’t know about you but I have to steel myself these days to turn on the Today programme in the morning. There is always the terrifying prospect that an infuriatingly overexcited Robert Peston will come on, barely able to contain his glee as he reports that one’s own bank or pension fund has just gone spectacularly bust. And when that dire day comes, as I increasingly fear it will, Peston will doubtless be followed by a sanctimonious government minister who will inform us that we are all going to have to work until we are 80 before we can receive our meagre state pensions.

What’s scariest of all, I find, is that when one runs into people who really understand money, they always seem to take the most apocalyptic view of all. Apparently, we should all have converted what savings we have into gold a long time ago and hidden it safely under the floorboards.

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