Cashes To Ashes

In David Bowie's 'Diamond Dogs' album, the post-apocalyptic city is roamed by fearsome scavengers. One of these, the Halloween Jack, lives on top of the Manhattan Chase Bank. Since the building's old masters have gone, the guy gets down to the street by means of a rope.

Was Bowie's being prophetic in 1974, when he declaimed that there would be "no more big wheels"? Quite possibly. Because a growing number of commentators are blaming Dame David for starting the credit crunch. It has its roots in "securitisation" and the selling of the Bowie Bonds against future royalties in 1997. Apparently, the banks also saw this method as a way to generate easy cash, with alarming consequences. Cue the collapse of western society, accompanied by 'The Chant Of The Ever-Circling Skeletal Family'. Or something.