Times economist Anatole Kaletsky, wrote a perfectly New Labour mea culpa a couple of weeks ago. It went something like this:

“It pains me to say so but my economic forecasts for 2008 were entirely wrong. … However, it was all Hank Paulson’s fault.”

Gordon Brown’s new speechwriter, perhaps?

We are in for an exhilarating six months as the Czech Republic takes over the rotating European Union Presidency.

President Klaus is about as anti-EU as any Tory Eurosceptic. He has refused to sign the fraudulent Lisbon Treaty and been duffed up by the Euro mob as a result (see my piece here).

Now we have tidings of a truly awful sculpture (pictured above), commissioned by the wonderful Czechs for a major spot in Euroland, Brussels.

Apart from looking like a pile of rubbish — it’s supposed to be a map of the EU, with all its countries represented — the great thing about it is that Britain is missing completely. Oh the irony!

Apparently, British artist, Khalid Asadi, thought a no-show by the rowdy islanders would best represent our feelings about the whole shoddy enterprise. Would that the Turner Prize could be so relevant.

Give that man a Knighthood.

PS We’re now hearing that the “sculpture” may be a hoax, having been concocted by one man, not by 27 artists. Indeed, the British fellow, Khalid Asadi, is thought not to exist. What an excellent representation of the whole European Union project.

Give that man a Peerage.

What is it about greens? No, not Brussels sprouts, I mean the green politicos who berate us for almost anything we do nowadays.

Turn on the radio and there they are: near hysterical voices getting worked up about an aircraft, a car, a policy, a lightbulb. Whatever it may be, STOP! You’re destroying the planet.

The matter of light bulbs is the latest incursion into our generally pleasant existence. Hyperactive David Miliband volunteered the nation to be the first to switch from Edison’s neat little tungsten filaments to the ghastly mercury-filled, dimdowned, expensive contraptions that are now almost unavoidable and will be enforced by EU “law” soon.

The big stores have stopped selling the 100watt+ bulbs by voluntary agreement. Soon the rest will go.

Luckily, I’ve discovered a small, independent ironmongers run by little old ladies, and they’ve got stacks of the old-fashioned beauties. Thanks to them, I’ve got a crateful of bulbs stockpiled against further crackdowns by the Euro police.

Greens have long been associated with dictatorial governments, like the Nazis. They are naturally authoritarian by nature, ruling, if given the chance, by a stream of “Don’t do this, don’t do that” injunctions.

Shouldn’t we shunt them into oblivion by bringing back the “conservationists”, a much nicer class of folk?

I’ll let you into a dark secret. I’ve always wanted to own a hedge fund.

There’s something attractively racy about hedge funds and their owners. Dressed in Savile Row’s finest, with offices in Mayfair, they stroll along the Strand into the City … and heads turn. Shadowy figures shrink back into dark doorways as they pass. Another day short-selling the banks begins, sucking millions from their vaults with consummate ease — a bit like Count Dracula really.

And yet, the world’s most admired investor has a hedge fund. Warren Buffett, Sage of Omaha, who still lives in his first, modest marital home, is a hedgey. You can’t conceive of a more restrained investment policy than buying blue chips, but only if they are well-managed.

It was Buffett who put five billion into Goldman Sachs preference shares when the outfit was on its knees last year. Well managed they certainly are, despite the credit crisis. Didn’t they send Hank Paulson to the U.S. Treasury Department? What a relief that must have been. Warren B. is clearly a genius.

In Britain, being a hedge fund owner is like nipping over to Deauville to play the tables and splash out on the horses, never mind the fillies. King Edward VII was a regular sailor across the channel a century ago. Few Kings have been more popular amongst the poor and needy. Today, he would undoubtedly run a hedge fund.

So, if anyone out there has a hedge fund going cheap, I’m your man.

I should point out though that my experience of the industry doesn’t go much beyond knowing it’s not a branch of topiary.

I know it’s the weekend when I spend half an hour throwing out three-quarters of my morning newspapers before I’ve started reading them.

Out go the travel supplement, properties section, appointments, glossy magazines, CDs, motoring, sports, reviews, arts, gardening, cookery, advertising leaflets, packaging, sudoku and “Train Your Brain” booklets.

I’m left with the main paper itself — surprisingly slim these days — and the business section. I read the commentariat and skim through the news coverage, most of which I’ve consumed already on 24-hour TV news.

So, what do I get from the papers? Very little, except for a screen-free few hours of reading. My £2 ($3) Sunday Times, which yesterday weighed in at around 3lbs on the kitchen scales, provided me with nothing I couldn’t have read online at timesonline.co.uk.

They are now part of my exercise routine, however. At weekends, I walk to the Quay to buy the main titles, and stroll back along the riverbank, changing arms occasionally. It has become my weight-training workout, my upper-body, cardiovascular stressor session.

At around a fiver, that’s very good value, even if I do chuck most of them away.

John Evans

I’ve never really thought that Warren Buffett (pictured left) would want to invest in Syntagma Media, but an entrepreneur can dream.

Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, and one of the top two or three richest people on the planet — heck, he even owns a hedge fund, is known for making shrewd investments. Where Warren burrows, others follow — like rabbits.

Like all good business folk he’s noticed that the dollar has been on the slide for quite a while, agonizingly compensating for America’s huge foreign trade deficit. Meanwhile, the poor old pound sterling is about to hit the starry heights of $2.10, making the greenback worth all of 47 pence (45 on PayPal).

For those of us paid in Uncle Sam’s Monopoly money that’s quite a hit we’re taking over here in the UK and Europe. We’ll be reduced to Dickensian conditions by year end, mark my words. We may even apply for Marshall Aid.

Anyway, back to Warren Buffett. He’s now announced he is NOT investing in any business whose income is designated in dollars.

Shrewd? Yes.

Scrooge? You said it. That’s why I say Buffett has rejected Syntagma Media.

On top of all that we have the credit crunch? Is that a new breakfast cereal? It’s the result of American banks giving mortgages to the trailer-park poor who couldn’t afford to repay them. They then sliced, diced and packaged them into “collateral debt obligations” and sold these to banks around the world.

Now banks don’t trust other banks — or their own balance sheets — so lending short-term funds to other financial institutions is at a standstill. Result? The world suddenly has an acute shortage of liquidity.

The U.S. used to be good at banking. What happened?