notes from meltdown central

The Citigroup building has finally got its new name up.  One day shortly before Christmas, I looked up to spy a man in an orange jump suit sitting in the middle of the big C - exactly like the guy in the Chanel advert. I'm sure that's what he was thinking to himself too, as there was no obvious reason for him to be there and he didn't appear to be doing anything except sit.   At that point the C was all there was to see, but now the complete, not particularly majestic logo is back on all four sides of the building (see pic).  
To understand this exercise in pointlessness we have to go back to February 14th, 2007.  Oh, happy days, when the sub-prime crisis was just a cloud on the horizon, as Citigroup confirmed that it would tie its businesses together under the Citi brand, with a simple stylized arc over its name, at the same time selling back its familiar red umbrella to the St. Paul Travelers, the insurance company that had previously used the logo.  

"Citi is already among the most recognized and respected brands in global financial services," Charles Prince 3rd, Citigroup's chairman and chief executive, said in a statement. "It is how most of our clients think about us already."
We won't go into all that again - everyone knows what happened next, and Mr Prince himself is long gone.  And now, two years later, and no doubt at no small cost,  the new umbrella-less logo is finally in place on the Citigroup building, proving that some kinds of corporate silliness are very resilient indeed.  Credit Suisse did the same thing three years ago, and are in almost as bad a mess as Citi, but their shareholders can take comfort in the thought that as their building is only 19 storeys high they probably had to pay less to the men who installed the logo.  

And lastly for anyone who was wondering, we did finally manage to get the seal video off Harry's phone, but it got a bit truncated in the process.  Here's what survived.  It is a seal, honestly !!!

For believers in omens, this is surely a good one.  I was sitting moodily in the canteen thinking to myself that I hadn't seen the Canary Wharf seal in MONTHS when up rushed one of my colleagues (they know I am a seal fan)  brandishing a mobile phone to show me a video he took on 31st December, outside Henry Addington's bar mid-afternoon (well it WAS New Year's Eve), showing the seal swimming around merrily on the surface and EATING A DUCK.  There were plenty of witnesses, most of whom can be heard moaning on the sound track about the fact that they can't get their cameras to work and then moaning even more when the seal finally disappears just as they start to film.  
It is a very good movie but unfortunately as we are both over a certain age we could not work out how to get the video off his camera so that I could post it here. (Maybe next week, when he's had time to ask his grandson for advice).    But it's got to be a good sign, or at least a sign of something, right ?  Does it mean that the recession is even affecting seals and they are going back to their natural food sources, huntin and fishin as in days of yore ?  On the other hand, has anybody ever heard of a seal eating a duck before ?  Is this not in fact a fat cat among seals ?  Has he eaten all the available fish ?   Anyway, at least the seal hasn't deserted us, which has to be a good thing.  I'm sure the ancient Romans would know what to make of it.