You see, I'm thinking of buying a house.

I took a drive to see my friendly bank manager the other day. You see I’m thinking of buying a house.

You may well be screaming at me right now, “Are you a complete nutter? You‘re as mad as a mule chewing bumblebees” .

Well in my infinite ignorance, I am slowly coming to the opinion that some sort of bottom has been reached in property and the timing could be opportune. I also think that seeing as this particular property would be less of an investment and more of a home, and hence if it turns out that I paid a little bit over the odds, well then so what - it’s not as if it’s a share in BP plc that’s to be bought and sold for a nifty quick profit or anything!

Oh by the way it would seem as if my brother-in-law can stop chomping his teeth nervously. You may recall that he bought some BP shares recently and the price almost immediately proceeded to drop like a lemming after a bad day.

Indeed it was pointed out to him by one individual sage that he was as mad as a mule chewing on bumblebees.

Well it would seem he has the last laugh. BP shares are up over 30% from the lows and he is comfortably breaking even with all the indications being of more upside.

It’s a perfect example of what the other sage, Mr Buffet, often says…..when people are afraid, that’s when to be greedy and when other people are greedy and buying, that’s when to be afraid. The ride is likely to remain a little bit jittery, but it is increasingly beginning to look like a one way bet now and again like any sensible investor, he ‘bet’ an amount of money that he is prepared to lose. So all in all a nice bit of business there and congratulations to him.

Anyway back to my foolish business and back to my meeting with the bank manager.

It is a far more austere experience than the last time I sat down with him. That was five years ago. We didn’t meet in the bank branch. We dined out at a restaurant. And it wasn’t a café/canteen type restaurant. There were menus, there were four courses and desserts. There was even a selection of cheeses at the end. It lasted two hours. He worse a flash suit. Impeccable cuffs, and choice cuff links that he bought at a Ryder Cup auction for a quite silly price. And he paid for the lunch.

There were no forms. He didn’t ask me for any personal info, pay slips, P60s. He just said to me as we walked to the car park ‘that’s grand’ and that I could go ahead and bid on the property and that everything would be ‘grand’. I got into my car and drove back to work, and thought to myself ‘grand’. And he got into his car and drove to the golf club for another of these laid back and profitable ‘meetings’.

A charming man at the time with the untold burden of how he should choose to receive and how to spend his juicy bonus.

Five years later, the meeting takes place upstairs in the branch. There were no fancy meals. The suit jacket is well and truly off, and the sleeves are rolled up. I wondered where the cufflinks were now. There was not even a tea, a coffee, a Bovril or a biscuit to be had. I contented myself with 3 visits to the water cooler. No laid back comments like ‘ah sure that’ll be grand’, or ‘we’ll not worry about that’, or a ‘sure maybe you’d like to borrow a few more grand to sort out some decking and sure maybe you’re thinking of changing your car’?

This time it was forms, questionnaires, requests for pay slips, P60s, passports, fingerprints, DNA testing, and a polygraph test. It felt more like an interrogation by the Baltimore narcotics unit after a raid on one of Avon Barksdale’s street corner gang. The only thing missing was the frisk, the brief and the tape recording (as far as I know).

The manager clearly was a discontented man and a man under pressure. No bonuses for the last couple of years. Longer hours. More tax. Lower pay. No new car every year. Bigger pension contributions. Company shares completely worthless. “Share in the success of the company? Now that’s a laugh”.

And worse to come.

He uses his ‘declined’ rubber stamp three times more frequently than his ‘approved’ one And he spends most of his ‘constructive’ time chasing down bad loans, restructuring loans and of course the ultimate loan restructuring...namely the dreaded repossession.

And what can he do as an alternative? Resign? Get another job? Hardly likely. There is still a recession. And regardless of whatever economic statistic that gets rolled out by the Stasi, sorry by a national government sponsored research bureau it ain’t going nowhere fast.

Or as oft-quoted idol Michael O’Leary put it so lyrically recently: anyone who thinks that the recession is over is either seriously deluded or a civil servant!

So the poor man must muddle on bravely in a job that he now completely loathes, and now in a position where he predominantly delivers bad news.

Eventually the meeting was ended, and this time far from there being a ‘grand’ and conclusive outcome, the bank manager will ‘let me know’. As much as I can make out, his power of decision making has been greatly diminished and I strongly suspect that either his boss, his boss’s boss, or his boss’s boss’s boss , will decide on mortgage approval. And seeing as the government and hence the tax payer owns a substantial shareholding in this bank, it’s all terribly ironic isn‘t it?

And with the recent announcement of the stress testing of so many European banks coming up. I am beginning to wonder now only will my bank survive the test, but perhaps Jean Claude Trichet himself will be the person to directly phone me up with a mortgage approval or rejection!

So we shall all sit in wait folks. And my promise to you, is that when I know, well sure then I’ll let you know.

And sure hopefully it will be ‘grand’.