Perhaps it's because it was the end of August, that perfidious month of heat and humidity, but there was nothing emanating from the sound-making orifices employed by our politicians that caught my eye and inspired me.

I'm sure they've put their feet in their mouths often enough, even though they're probably still in holiday mode, but there was nothing in particular, so I'll give them a free ride this week. I won't even get at the tree-huggers, either, and I'll leave everyone else alone, apart from giving an "attaboy" to the guys who chained up Mepa for a bit, reminding me of the good old days when university students chained themselves to Castille to remind Dom Mintoff, who had just scuttled by cravenly on the day, that his slash-and-burn policies at the Medical School and the university might be OK for class-hatred fomenting purposes but not for the rest of us.

Summer is the time for leisure and reflection, really, and our beloved politicians have plenty of the former to do the latter, what with Parliament having longer holidays than schools. Swinging wildly away from the local scene, over the last week I was reading an excellent piece of work I picked up at the Edinburgh Book Festival about the financial crisis, Fool's Gold, by a respected commentator, Gillian Tett. She is a Financial Times writer with a background in anthropology, of all things, and her analysis makes interesting, if scary, reading.

She describes the way the banking and what is described as the "shadow banking" world became even more inward-looking and how credit and financial instruments of breath-taking complexity were constructed in order to move vast (and when one says "vast" one is referring to figures that defy comprehension) amounts round and round the market, earning gargantuan commissions for the people doing the job, the "Masters of the Universe" who devised these acronym-laden virtual assets, ignored by regulators who themselves lacked the knowledge or will to interfere.

And then the merry-go-round came off the rails, if I might be allowed to mix my fairground metaphors, leaving us all where we are now. The basic problem, it seems, was the fact that the foundation of the whole thing consisted in mortgages granted to people who were not up to paying them back.

Yep, folks, it was as simple as that, down at the bottom-line. You know the ones I mean, the "sub-prime mortgages", as if the name of the flippin' things itself wasn't enough to make it pretty clear what was going to happen at some point in time.

The financial whizkids, for all their MBAs and PhDs, apparently could see only as far as the walls of the silos and bunkers from which the assembly lines of lousy debt piled on lousy debt piled on further lousy debt were created and when the revolving blades were hit by the by-product of their efforts, Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall and no mistake.

When you think about it, it was pretty inevitable. Western society - and the financial world in particular - became obsessed to the point of ignoring everything else with acquisition and gain. Fancy a new car? Go to an admiral or to some squeaking parrot or some ludicrous talking dog and it will be yours. Cash running out? No problem, you have a house, don't you? We'll lend you more money on it - and get a nice fat commission for doing so - and if push comes to shove, we'll cash in, again, by selling your house.

But the problem was, when push did come to shove, the house wasn't worth chips and we all know where we are now. And then the regulators and the central bankers, fine men and women that they are, with a good dose of way too little, way too late, reflecting the dithering and doubting that beset their political masters to a "T".

Thanks, guys, we owe you.

In a more leisurely vein, if you like opera, go and watch Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds (sorry about the correct/wrong spelling). It's a celebration of violence and mayhem in the style of grand opera, with music and settings to match.

Seriously, it's a fine piece of work in its style.

Although it was hot and sticky, we went out to dinner on Saturday, hitting the roofs in Victoria. I believe I've mentioned it before, the restaurant we went to, it's Maji at the back of It-Tokk and it was a rather decent meal then, as it was an even better meal now. Just a small niggle, to show I was paying attention, at the lighting on the roof, which does not match up to the excellent quality of the rest of the experience, but that is really only just a niggle.

imbocca@gmail.com, www.timesofmalta.com/blogs