Some time ago I picked up on a terrific LRB article on ‘Cityphilia’ by John Lanchester. Well, now he’s written the companion piece, ‘Cityphobia’. Here’s how it opens:

Byron wrote that ‘I think it great affectation not to quote oneself.’ On that basis, I’d like to quote what I wrote in a piece about the City of London, in the aftermath of the Northern Rock fiasco: ‘If our laws are not extended to control the new kinds of super-powerful, super-complex and potentially super-risky investment vehicles, they will one day cause a financial disaster of global-systemic proportions.’

Lovely stuff.