Silly bankers - What the Dickens* is going on?

With the financial crisis worsening by the minute and HBOS the next big name bank to be facing meltdown, it's probably not the right time to tell the bankers to take an hour off and read a book.

But if they did have a few hours to spare (and let's face it, a fair few of them will in the coming months), what do we recommend they should read?

Forget the self-help manuals and the get-rich-quick tomes. Go for a bit of Dickens, I'd tell 'em:

Start with Martin Chuzzlewit; and if you've got half an ounce of empathy in that greed-addled brain of yours, you'll quickly see that the Big CD foresaw exactly the kind of crisis you've now got yourself into. Witness Martin and poor sop Mark Tapley off on a fool's errand to make their fortune in - of all things - the US real estate sector!

And witness Montague Tigg and his ne'er-do-well business partners as they fleece the populace with their Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life Assurance Company.

If that all sounds like heavy going (and it honestly isn't - it's excellent, entertaining stuff) then pop down to the library (yes, they do still exist, but only just) and borrow a GCSE-level history book, flick through the index for "South Sea Bubble" and "Tulip" … And maybe you'll finally get the message!

* Any editors out there may by now have realised that I deliberately used a cap D for Dickens.