Nah – the un-knighting of Fred has not taken banker bashing too far

Dunno if taking back Fred Goodwin’s knighthood means Her Majesty now has a spare gong to dish out. If so, Alf will be putting up his hand and saying me, me, me…

He will do this very discreetly, so as not to draw attention to his somewhat desperate yearning for a title, but as his mates know, he has long fancied being called Sir Alfred Grumble and the missus – just quietly – would like to be known as Lady Grumble.

Meantime he has had a look at newspaper coverage of the events that have turned Sir Fred into plain old Fred.

He refers, of course, to Fred Goodwin, the former boss of the Royal Bank of Scotland who was Sir Fred Goodwin until this week.

The RBS’s ex-boss is branded Fred The Bed as another banker becomes better known for bonking

Sir Fred and Lady Joyce will have plenty to talk about when they get home.

Alf has never been too fond of bankers (and he hopes Mrs Grumble shares his aversion to the buggers).

But when he said they were bonkers, he was referring to their feeble grasp of his finances when they turned down his application for a loan.

It seems they are bonkers in more ways than one.

Blackballed banker could tee off here

Of dear. Fred has been blackballed by a golf club.

No, not a golf club. You could say the golf club. The Royal and Ancient, no less.

Yep. Sir Fred Goodwin, the bloke who seems to have botched things as boss of the Royal Bank of Scotland, is at the centre of a row over his attempts to join one of the world’s most illustrious golf clubs.

After Sir Fred’s role in the collapse of RBS was revealed, resentment towards him began to grow on the fairways of Fife.

The Eketahuna golf course - you can come and play here, Sir Fred.

Goodwin and a bank’s bad losses

Banking is a good game to be in, if you are unsure about whether you will be good at it.

Even if the bank you are running fails – or falters, but is rescued by taxpayers – you stand to do quite nicely, thank you. In Britain, anyway (and reports from the US show it is true there, too).

The Royal Bank of Scotland has just announced the largest annual loss in British corporate history.

Bailed out by the government last year, it has reported a 2008 loss of £24.1bn.

It says it will put £325bn of “toxic assets” (Alf loves the language of high finance) into a scheme that offers insurance for any future losses.

So who was in charge when the bank was racing to the cliff edge?