Financial Crisis

So, Gordon Brown has saved the world! and even the USofA is going to “socialize” its banks today? Who’dda thot it?

Reflections on three levels, national first: This is bad news for the Scottish Nationalists, previously riding high. If last week's crisis had happened in a free Scotland, we’d have been down the tubes like Iceland. (The RBS and a still-substantial part of HBOS, once Scotland’s pride, are Scotland’s problems.) (And those problems far exceed Scotland’s GDP.) I predict that Labour will hold Glenrothes, and rightly so.

Civic: this will make a big difference to Edinburgh. When we came here 15 years ago, there was a brewery somewhere about, and on some days you could smell the hops, or whatever it is breweries smell of. That smell wouldn’t have been welcome if it had been with us every day, but on its occasional appearances, it was bracing. The brewery closed. The smell is gone. Edinburgh is different.

And it will be even more different, very different, with the power and the money gone.

Personal: I spent yesterday afternoon working on the income tax, and made great progress. With the figures all there in front of me, I couldn’t resist looking to see how much worse off we’ll be in the current tax year without dividends from our shares in HBOS and RBS. The answer took me aback.

On the bright side (for Scottish readers): Andy Hornby is out of a job!

Knitting

Here’s the Princess, six rows into the 9th repeat. It’s hard to believe, looking at it like this, that I’ve knit only just-over-a-third of the centre.

The offset 7th repeat can be seen if you apply yourself, but I am no longer worried at all about its ultimate effect.

Cynthia: I had exactly your thought yesterday, even before I read your comment. The pattern repeat is only 12 stitches. I have put markers every 24 stitches, working outwards from the centre stitch. At the end of a repeat, I don’t actually count stitches, I count markers, multiply by 24, and then count the extra stitches at the end of the row.

So the lack-of-stitches I mentioned yesterday could be entirely explained if one of the markers enclosed not 24 but 36 stitches.

But the trouble is – that isn’t true.

I remain baffled, and continue to count and recount, while at the same time adding a stitch every four rows near the right-hand edge. No one will notice.

Knititch, yo’s are no problem. In lace knitting, one constantly relates what one is doing to the row below, just as in colour knitting. A missing yo can easily be restored by picking up the bar before the next stitch and knitting into it. A misplaced yo can be dispensed with by just dropping it.

Breaking news

I wouldn't have mentioned this if I hadn't already ordered the ones I want -- but Franklin's calendar is now available if you follow the link from his website.