Loan Ranger

If people needed an indication that the world’s economy is teetering on the brink of meltdown, they pretty much got it this week.

Never let it be said that Loan Ranger and his gang aren’t dedicated to the loan market’s health, wealth and good living.

One of the most popular party games at the ranch, after pin the tail on Silver, is making paper aeroplanes out of the mountain of press releases that find their way on to the desk where the typewriter sits.

Even wild horses and bank holidays cannot keep Loan Ranger away from his desk when he’s on a quest for loan-worthy news.

Loan Ranger has the distinct impression that he is being blackballed by some of the loan market’s party organisers. Another week, another invitation, and — alas — another Thursday night shindig, when, of course, every EuroWeek scribe is all work and no play.

Loan Ranger has been so starved of emails and phone calls in these hazy, lazy days of summer in London that the ping of a party invitation popping up in his inbox set his heart thumping.

Loan Ranger is not one for perilous rides through hazardous country, fearful as he is of unleashing the anger of the wild beasts out there. In fact, he would probably only opt for a Kenyan safari from the safety of an armoured Hummer.

ING’s PR machine: Beware! Your bankers are more interested in substance than style.

Inflation is like toothpaste — easy to squeeze but impossible to get back in the tube. The same, Loan Ranger can reveal, can be said of loan market gossip.

A hack’s working week can be painstakingly tough. Take this last one as an example. Loan Ranger had lunches lined up on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Cocktail parties had to be attended on Tuesday and Wednesday. Today (Friday) he will be at Lord’s, care of Merrill Lynch.

Loan Ranger nipped out of the ranch for a brief afternoon at the bookies this week to check out the odds on who’s to be the next chairman of the Loan Market Association. And it’s a tough call, alright.

Société Générale is a generous bank and all at the ranch are big amis of Steve, Chris, Damien et al. So it was with supreme excitement and a frisson of salle de bain that we set off to London’s Victoria and Albert Museum on Monday night for cocktails and canapés.