Credit crisis diary

Home-owners high and dry in Sandbanks

It's not just the poor and lowly who are feeling the pinch in the current financial crisis – spare a thought for the hard-up millionaires too.

In Poole's Sandbanks neighbourhood – purported to be the fourth most expensive place to buy a property in the world – two families have had their homes repossessed over the past few months, both worth over £1m. Embarrassed neighbours are said to be none too impressed. Perhaps that's why newTottenham Hotspurmanager Harry Redknapp is trading in his Sandbanks home for the civilisation ofnorth London.

Brand and Barclays

And it's notjust poor old Andrew Sachs who was feeling angry with Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross's lewd phone messages this week. Barclays chairman Marcus Agius, left, was pretty put out by the whole affair too.

While he was busy trying to put the finishing touches to a deal which would see £7.3bn of new money injected into his bank, he found himself summoned to an emergency board meeting at the BBC, where he's an independent director, to help fire-fight the Radio 2 fiasco.

So not only did Ross and Brand cause massive offence to thousandsof people, but it would seem they also came within a whisker of jeopardising the security of Britain's third largest bank!

Give the man a break, says Ryanair

Not everyone's angry with Wossy though. In fact, the ever-charitable Ryanair felt so sorry for him that they've sent him a free pair of tickets to travel on any of their routes – to escape the media. "We are sending some Ryanair Ryanaid to Ross," their spokesman Stephen McNamara told The Independent. "Poor old Johnny has been sent to Coventry by the big wigs at the BBC, but he need not worry – Ryanair can bring him to far more exciting and exotic destinations. It is never easy when the main breadwinner loses his salary, so we are sending Johnny tickets so he can whisk the wife away to Paris or catch the rays with the family in Fuerteventura, and sample how the other half, who don't earn £18m, live."

Who ate the pies?

Retailers may be heading for their worst Christmas in 30 years, but the credit crunch is already sending many consumers into overdrive. That, at least, seems to be the evidence from Waitrose, the grocer, which said sales of its mince pies were up by a tasty 12 per cent in the week to 25 October. While the cold weather may have helped, some punters have obviously taken one retail pundit's forecast of "Christmas being cancelled" too literally, by eating all the pies two months in advance.