January began with a glut of Crime stories hung over from the Festive Period. Then the main themes of the month began to bed in: Scottish Independence was the first bone to occupy the dogs of the metaphorical Fleet Street, before we were distracted by a sinking ship. But the biggest football was kicked off on the 8th of January with the story "Cameron backs curb on executive pay". Ten days later, to remind Dave who's in charge, Goldman Sachs were paying bonuses in spite of a profits slump. The government responded on the 23rd: "Cable unveils plans to curb executive pay". Four days later, RBS were offering a £1m bonus to their CEO. This, it is reasonable to say, gave the government a slightly eggy face, though after some backstage arm-twisting and Labour's demand for a parliamentary debate on the matter, Hester kindly declined his pressie. To top things off for the month, the powers that be stripped dear old Fred Goodwin of his knighthood: a sort of sacrificial rite of the kind where the lamb does not get killed so much as lightly sheared. "Too little too late" doesn't quite cover it, I suspect. Maybe we should've just killed Cedric Brown when we had the chance.