• In simple terms, the credit crunch has been caused by banks lending money to one another. The problem is that the loans were "bad" as opposed to "good".

• Banks have now stopped lending to each other. The lack of funds to enable global business to happen is causing severe problems all over the world. Rather scarily, you get 1.14 million hits in a quarter of a second if you type "economic meltdown" into Google (call me superstitious if you will, but I didn't feel like using the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button when I conducted that experiment).

• The "solution" is to enable banks to lend to one another again.

• But banks lending to one another was what caused the problem in the first place.

• So, doing nothing causes "economic meltdown" and doing something has the potential to create an even bigger problem.

I suppose we've all got to hope that the global banking community has learned its lessons. And we might take some comfort from the promise that national and international regulators won't let things get so bad again. The problem is not banks lending money to one another per se; that is an economic necessity in the 21st century economy. They just have to make better lending decisions.

That having been said, I'm not sure that Alistair Darling or Henry Paulson had any other viable alternative. One the apparent universal truths in messes like this is that it is never the people who took the bad decisions who seem to suffer. A global economic meltdown would have far more serious consequences for the average man and woman in the street (who Sarah Palin calls "Joe Six Pack and Hockey Moms" in what may show a marked lack of appreciation of the true diet and exercise regimes of a lot of people in the industrial world) than it would for (with apologies for the stereotype) the Ferrari-driving-champagne-swilling-bonus-earning City trader who helped contribute to the problem.

I'm sure I'm not alone in wishing as speedy a resolution as possible to the crisis. For what it's worth, I'd also quite like an apology from the traders who got us into this mess in the first place.

It concerns the bizarre tale of a 28-year old delivery man in Hemel Hempstead and a camera he had bought on eBay and taken on holiday. On his return to Blighty, he downloaded his holiday snaps only to find pictures of rocket launchers and missiles which he definitely hadn't taken. He then went to his local police station, where, according to reports, the story was initially treated as a joke.

Imagine the poor chap's surprise when Special Branch descended on his home a few days later - interviewing him and his family on 5 separate occasions - before allegedly seizing his camera and computer (which were replaced at a cost to the public purse of £1,000). It turns out that, in addition to the rockets and missiles (which might be on their way to al-Qaeda), the camera is supposed to have contained details of al-Qaeda cells in the UK as well as the encrypted computer system used by MI6 agents working abroad.

Leaving aside my concerns that this appears to be the latest in a seemingly never-ending-list of 'confidential information found in laptop' stories - but how on earth did this happen? - one particular aspect of the story gives the lawyer in me significant cause for concern: I don't think that Special Branch had any right to confiscate his computer. This may well contain all sorts of personal information from the trivial (his favourite music) to the more serious (bank accounts) which are none of the police's business.

We are all entitled to private lives and this bloke had done absolutely nothing wrong. In fact, he appears to have acted in an entirely proper and civically-minded manner. The disruption to his private life and invasion of his privacy seem entirely disproportionate.

In making this point, I hope I am not coming across as naïve. Security and the need to protect us from terrorism is of huge importance, and will inevitably involve restrictions on our freedoms from time to time. However, the police's actions in this case seem over-the-top. Having satisfied themselves that the bloke hadn't committed a crime and wasn't a threat to national security, why didn't they remove the photos from the computer and leave things there?

I end with an apology for the fact that this blog is somewhat circumspect in its factual summary. That's because the police have forbidden the "shocked family" from speaking to the media. I can't help but wonder if he's hoping that the computer doesn't end up on eBay in a few months' time.

In England, government policy is to allow up to 10 days of term time holiday per year, although individual schools' rules may vary and you need the school's permission in any event.

Opinion is divided as to whether or not it is a good idea. On the one hand, the educational purists argue that taking kids out of school is not to be condoned at any cost and that maximising a child's educational opportunities has to be the priority. The government is certainly not in favour. On the other, there is a strong argument that travel can broaden the mind and that it is better to have some experience of travel (be it within the UK or abroad) in term time rather than none at all.

It is certainly a contentious issue. Lots of parents feel that they are priced out of the holiday market at peak times; the travel industry responds by arguing that prices are simply a reflection of supply and demand - holidays will cost more during busy periods.

A key concern for me is the question of how it all affects the child in question. We are fortunate enough to live in a first-world economy which provides schooling for everyone - although I must admit to not feeling that fortunate on a number of occasions during my time at school. Education presents everyone with a fantastic opportunity - and in simple terms, the better you do, the more choices you have as to your chosen career when you are older. Maybe my views will change in time, but I would have thought that the potential benefits of making the best of your education outweigh those to be gained from two weeks in the sun.

Which got me thinking: would Brum benefit from having its own directly-elected Mayor?

Central government is certainly keen on the idea. A recent white paper, with the admittedly less-than-snappy title of Communities in Control: Real People, Real Powers , is the first step in its latest effort to encourage more of us to have referendums on whether or not to have elected mayors. Only 13 towns and cities do so at the moment, and the powers-that-be appear a bit stumped as to why more of us haven't jumped on the bandwagon.

After all, even without the changes proposed in the white paper (which may not become law), mayoral campaigners did not have to overcome particularly steep obstacles in order to force a referendum on the issue - all you currently need is 5% of the local population to sign a petition. 7 referendums have taken place since 2004 and only one - Torbay - was successful.

One problem appears to be a lack of interest in the issue amongst the electorate - only 18% of the voters in Bury bothered to vote in their referendum earlier this year (but 60% of those who did rejected the idea). A similar explanation may well apply to the Birmingham Mail's unsuccessful campaign earlier this year - it only raised 12,000 of the 36,000 signatures it needed. The government's response in the white paper? Only require 2% of the population to ask for a referendum.

So are elected mayors a good thing? The answer perhaps depends on who's mayor. Paul Dale, the Post's public affairs editor, is a fan. The main arguments in favour: a powerful figure with a clear electoral mandate has to be better than the slightly haphazard committee system of obscure backroom deals we have at the moment (see Paul's blog for a detailed explanation of how Brum is currently governed) and may spark greater interest in how the city is run. The main argument against? No-one appears to be that bothered.

What do people think?

According to the survey, most of us aspire to received pronunciation - quite literally, we all want to sound like the Queen. And, if we can't achieve that lofty goal, we go all Celtic - Irish and Scottish accents are the next most desired.

Am I the only one who finds all this very depressing? Part of me reacts badly to the suggestion that we all have to sound posh. Not that there is anything wrong with sounding posh - quite the contrary - it's just that a residual desire to do so at all cost has the whiff of the class system about it.

And what's wrong with accents anyway? One of the things I love about the UK is its regional differences. For a very small group of islands, the diversity in our accents is amazing and, in my opinion, something to celebrate.

In any event, to suggest that all accents of the same type - be they received, Scottish, Scouse, Geordie or yam yam - are homogeneous seems daft. Regional accents come in varying degrees of tone - not all Scots sound like Billy Connolly; and everyone from Dudley doesn't sound like Lenny Henry.

So, in what is my last blog before Mrs P reminds me to pack my suitcase for my annual two-week break watching DVD highlights of Dundee United winning the Premier League in 1983 and listening to Bruce Springsteen's entire back catalogue (don't let it be said that I don't know how to have fun), can I end with a plea? Please be proud of how you sound, wherever it is you're from. And as for the West Midlands accent, I hope you agree with me that it's bostin.

What a difference 12 months makes. Now is not a good time to be a housebuilder. Significant job losses and redundancies have been announced (at least 5,000 in the last few weeks), share prices are in free fall and, to quote one managing director, "It's sh#t out there and getting sh#ttier by the day and there's no sign of when the sh#t is going to lift."

This raises the very simple question (to which there doesn't seem to be an obvious answer): why on earth has this happened? Although the credit crunch has made finance less available and more expensive, that does not seem of itself to be a sufficient explanation as to why such an industry whose product is in so much demand should be in such difficulties. There is lots of talk of bubbles bursting (which strikes me as a bit too trite to be really convincing) and of the speed of collapse taking everyone by surprise, but I can't be the only one who thinks the whole situation is both desperately tragic and somewhat bizarre.

We live in a country with lots of people, too little space and an inadequate housing stock. We need more (and better houses) and yet our (previously very successful) housebuilding industry is staring over the abyss of what is being decribed as the biggest fall in house prices since the Great Depression.

Caroilne Flint, the Housing Minister, recently announced plans to rejuvenate the sector including 'rent now, buy later' schemes for first-time buyers with a household income of less than £60,000 as well as committing to buying unsold housing from the private sector for affordable homes but concerns remain as to whether this will be enough.

In all of the confusion, one thing is certain. If the country is to have 3 million new homes by 2020, we need people to design and build them. We need our housebuilders to stay in business.

The truth is rather more mundane, but it's against that background that I offer the cautionary tale of Mr and Mrs Western. In 2005, they bought a new house in Essex. It had problems - about £20,000 worth. Because it was a brand new house, the Westerns had the benefit of insurance from the National House Builders Council - the NHBC. This contains a dispute resolution procedure which Mr and Mrs Western followed. They won, which is how we know the cost of putting things right.

However, the Westerns had also employed a building surveyor to help them with their case. His fees came to £7,000 and the Westerns wanted to be compensated for that expense. The builder was more than happy to fix the dodgy work, it just didn't want to pay the £7k as well.

Here's where things started to go wrong for the Westerns. They tried what they thought was the proper next step and appointed an arbitrator to decide things. The builder disagreed - both sides in a dispute need to agree to arbitration and the builder denied ever reaching any agreement. The dispute revolved around the precise wording of the NHBC documents. Ultimately, it went all the way to the High Court for a judge to decide whether or not the arbitration should proceed.

The judge agreed with the builder. In his judgment last month he found against the Westerns and ordered them to pay just over half of the builder's costs of taking the case to court (these came to £4k).

To make matters worse, the judgment explains that the builder had not actually been back to the Westerns' house in the meantime. They had refused him entry until the question of the surveyor's fees was resolved.

So, over a period of about two years, Mrs and Mrs Western have lived in a duff house, been through three different dispute resolution processes and, despite their underlying case being strong (the house has faults which the builder has agreed to put right), are over £11,000 out of pocket (they will have their own solicitor's costs on top of the surveyor's fees and the £4k paid to the builder).

Litigation is a risky business. It's great when it works; and more often than not a nightmare when it doesn't. The Westerns must be wondering what they have let themselves in for.

And the survey wasn't all doom and gloom for the next 12 months. Although the residential market is going to slow significantly (just how many more studio apartments does the city centre need?), there is plenty of Grade A office space coming on stream.

However, the people I talked to over breakfast were uniformly downbeat about prospects for the next 12 to 24 months. Predictions ranged from the jokey - "I will be spending a lot of the next 12 months reducing my golf handicap" - to the downright suicidal - "It's 1929 all over again".

It's not just Brum's property and construction industries that are worried. A quick scan of the headlines suggests that people are concerned about at least some or all of the following: house prices are falling; interest rates are on the up; the price of fuel and food is increasing radically; you can't get a mortgage for love nor money; America's economy seems to be in an even worse state than ours; and the great and the good all seem to be predicting doom and gloom.

If you believe the pessimists, we are either in recession already or headed that way at a rate of knots. But, with all the authority I can muster from having got an A in an economics exam 21 years ago, I'm not so sure.

Hopefully more persuasively. I've also come across this very interesting article by Anotole Kaletsky in which he (with a lot more authority, knowledge and ability than I can) challenges the assumption that America is in recession. His basic argument is that a downturn in the housing and banking industries is just that: a downturn (albeit a painful one) but not a recession.

I can't help but wonder if the same argument doesn't apply to the UK. That's not to decry the difficulties people are facing, or that we live in challenging times, but are we really in recession? To pinch the definition used in Kaletsky's article - "A recession is a significant decline in activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, visible in industrial production, employment, real income and wholesale-retail trade. A recession influences the economy broadly and is not confined to one sector." - the argument goes that we have not actually seen evidence of that.

Which brings me onto the question posed at the start. If we are not actually in recession, isn't there a danger that we will convince ourselves that things are worse than they really are? What do people think?

But the latest series has adopted a more serious tone as Kirstie and Phil consider how to stop the bottom falling out of the housing market. Their solution - asking the government to take a serious look at stamp duty.

If you've bought a house, then there's a strong chance that you've come across stamp duty (or stamp duty land tax to give it its full name) and you may well think it's rather unfair. I certainly do.

In fact, I'd go further - in the 21st century, it's a real anachronism. That's because most taxes are based on something tangible - income, capital gain or value to think of three of the most obvious ones. Stamp duty isn't. No: it's the cost of getting a bit of paper that the government insists on before you can register your purchase at the Land Registry. The cost to you depends on the value of the house. Up to £125k, there's no charge. Then it's 1% of the purchase price up to £250k, 3% up to £500k and 4% for houses worth more than that. The average house price in England and Wales is £183,626. So, if you have bought an average house recently, there was nearly 2 grand extra on the bottom line in return for a bit of paper. It's perhaps no surprise that the total value to Alistair Darling is north of £7 billion.

Kirstie and Phil aren't advocating the abolition of the tax altogether, and it would be naïve to expect the government to find an extra £7 billion by magic from another source. Rather, their concern is to keep the property market buoyant - the volume of sales has fallen by roughly 30% between February 2007 and February 2008.

Their suggestion:

(i) First time buyers should not have to pay stamp duty when the value of the purchase property is under £250,000.

(ii) It should then be graduated for everyone else so that buyers generally pay 1% on the first £125,000 to £250,000. Above this threshold, the 3% would only be charged on the amount over £250,000 (rather than the full amount) and similarly the 4% only on the amount over £500,000.

Am I the only one who thinks that there's a lot of sense in this?

Last night, my wife assured me that, at the age of 37 and ¾, I have officially become a grumpy old man. The cause of my ire: the blinking ugly electricity pylon which has been plonked in Victoria Square as the "centrepiece" of Brum's Climate Change Festival.

According to the organisers:

"The pylon brings home the reality of climate change - it makes the issue of climate change visible and local. It isn't just happening far from home and in the future: it's happening here and now...The climate change festival has been designed to make the invisible (carbon emissions) visible, and the idea lies at the heart of our problem with energy: we are rarely conscious of how much we use."

Am I the only person who thinks this is utter gobbledygook?

Don't get me wrong, I am very concerned about climate change (who isn't?) and try my best to be a responsible citizen. I also work with clients who are passionate about building a new generation of carbon-neutral buildings (although the jury is still out on what carbon-neutral actually means).

I know it's not fashionable in some quarters to admit it, but I found Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth a very disturbing film and I worry like crazy about the future of the planet (especially the fact that no-one appears to be agreed on what the solution - or indeed the cause of the problem - actually is).

But, I also drive a car, heat my home with gas, watch the telly and fly places on holiday - and so do lots of other people. Those are facts of modern life and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. If, as I suspect is the case, the pylon is supposed to make us feel guilty about living (and consuming electricity), then I can't help but feel a wee bit patronised. It is also hideously ugly and ruins the best bit of our city centre.

I also agree with this comment I saw on the web-page of Building magazine, the key journal for the construction industry in the UK: "If the organisers feel people need to see a giant pylon to get the point, why there are plenty within five minutes of my house - it would have cost nothing to show people those".

The only saving grace: the wretched thing gets dismantled on the 8th.

Maybe it's because I'm on the vertically-challenged side of things height wise, but I have long been fascinated by tall buildings. It's not just their size and scale that impress - although I have to admit that they do. Done well: they can be inspiring visitor attractions. Think of the Empire State and Rockefeller Centre in New York or the John Hancock Building and Sears Tower in Chicago. You have stunning buildings with great facilities that attract tourists like magnets. What's more, they have become symbols of their cities recognisable the world over. And having dragged (an admittedly somewhat windswept) Mrs P to the top of all of them bar Sears Tower, I can confirm that they have great views.

So, am I a fan of tall buildings? Unequivocally yes. Would I like to see more in Brum? Same answer. Do I think they would be good for business...dear reader, I think you can guess my response.

Which brings us to the (for me at least) more interesting question of why people might not want them. So far as the debate in Brum is concerned, there appear to be two points. One is the understandable concerns about tall buildings following the dreadful events of September 11th. However, I think that is a concern about the truly awful things that extremists can do and not a criticism of tall buildings per se. I agree with the approach being adopted by New York. The proposed Freedom Tower is a bold and brave response to the terrorists. I hope to visit it.

Which brings us onto the local objections from the Victorian Society, most recently regarding the proposed redevelopment of the NatWest Tower. Their allegation is that the redevelopment is nothing more than "political, economic and architectural opportunism" which blows "a destructive hole" in the "consistent fabric" of buildings along Colmore Row. I'm not an architect but I'm a bit surprised at the blowing-a-hole bit of the argument. Isn't that what the current tower has done? As for the opportunism, my understanding of the proposals is that British Land hope to turn an ugly concrete monstrosity into a 21st century office building. What's wrong with that?

Having said all that, I still don't like Beetham Tower. Too green.

The transition town movement has been set up to meet the challenges of climate change and the high cost of oil. One of the suggestions being considered by some towns - Totnes in Devon was the first with Lewes in Sussex recently deciding to follow suit - is that transition towns create their own currencies; there is now a Totnes pound. The idea is that the local currency will only be available to purchase locally-produced goods and services which will encourage local commerce and reduce Totnes's and Lewes's reliance on goods brought in from elsewhere, the amount of oil they consume and their carbon footprints.

If Brum were to accept Ms Short's recommendation, we too could see ourselves spending the Brum pound (although hopefully we might come up with a better name). And, with apologies for the legal-anorak nature of what follows, this raises a very interesting legal conundrum.

This is because the money we use now isn't actually worth anything. It's what lawyers call a bill of exchange, which is a posh way of describing an IOU. It's a promise to pay; if you think about it, that's what the words actually say on the notes produced by the Bank of England. The only way that money works is because it's backed up by assets at the Bank of England (or the lending banks in Scotland and Northern Ireland which can also issue their own currency). In practice, we never bother to call in on the asset held by the bank - we just treat the money as if it were as good as the asset. The system works fine unless we think that the bank doesn't have sufficient assets to support the money in circulation. When that happens, at the very least you get runaway inflation of the kind seen recently in Zimbabwe. The worst case scenario is a financial crisis of truly horrible proportions.

So here's the problem. What will the Brum (or indeed Totnes or Lewes) pound actually be? Well, they can only themselves be bills of exchange which will, I assume, have to be swapped at some stage in the future for other bills of exchange in the form of proper money. On the one hand, this makes me wonder whether the whole idea is going to be unnecessarily complicated. Why not just be an "informed" consumer and try to buy locally in any event if that's what you want to do? On the other hand, a little bit of me can't help but think that it might be fun trying. What do people think?

Currently there is a split between the judge's role and the jury's. Judges decide on what law is relevant - can that bit of evidence be introduced? The jury decides the facts - is the defendant guilty or innocent? The alternative would be to adopt the procedure used in a number of European countries where the judge decides everything - facts and law.

There are a couple of significant downsides to jury service. The most obvious is that it is incredibly disruptive to jurors' lives - both at work and at home. The normal length of service is two weeks but complicated (and more important) cases can last a lot longer. It used to be that there were lots of ways that you could avoid serving. This tended to mean that, instead of being tried by a jury of your peers drawn from a genuine cross-section of society, alleged criminals were tried by a jury made up of people who weren't working for whatever reason, students (out of term time) and people with sympathetic and publicly-spirited employers. Certain jobs - solicitors being one - were completely exempt.

That all changed a few years ago with the government keen to ensure that juries were more representative of the whole community. Jurors are selected at random from the electoral roll. If you are registered to vote, you can be a juror. The question is whether you can really spare 6 months out of the year to be involved in that serious fraud case.

The other main criticism of jury trials is whether, especially in the case of complex frauds and the like, juries are the best people to decide guilt or innocence. The problem is that some of the alleged scams are so complicated that you need a PhD in financial fraud to understand what's going on.

On the other hand, I understand where the judge was coming from. Trial by jury is a long-held tradition in the UK and I for one think that it just feels right. The concern is whether we as a society are prepared to support jury trials as an institution. What do people think?

There are two main allegations:
(i) A firm is invited to bid for a contract. It doesn't want the job. Nor does it want to offend a client by refusing to bid - it wants to get offered work in the future. It therefore agrees with others to offer a bid that it knows is too high to be successful.
(ii) A small number of firms (assumed to be 9) have gone further. They agreed who would win between themselves. The successful firm then made compensation payments to the others.

The story comes with a significant word of caution. The OFT's report is actually confidential and has yet to be released. The 112 firms have until 30 June to respond and no-one has been found guilty of anything. All we have to go on is this press release from the OFT itself.

However, if true, the allegations are pretty serious. They relate to £3 billion worth of public contracts let over a four year period. To perhaps over-simplify things a bit, the named firms have been stealing from the public purse and face the prospect of significant fines - which could be up to 10% of the accused firms' global turnovers. If all of the accused get the maximum fine, the total payable to the government could exceed £2 billion.

So what should we make of it all? The first thing to stress is that construction is of fundamental importance to the UK economy - contributing roughly 10% of our GDP and employing between 1.5 and 2 million people. The second is that the industry has taken the story very seriously with a leading trade journal launching a campaign to reassure clients of the industry's ethics and a trade body, the Construction Confederation, issuing a robust defence of the industry.

I must admit to being confused and concerned as to the whole affair. Based on my own experience, the suggestion that the industry is crooked to the core is plain wrong. I am also keen to reserve judgment until all of the companies named have had the chance to respond - at the moment, all we have are the OFT's allegations. On the other hand, if people have been defrauding the public purse, then it is quite right that they should be held to account although Stephen Gruneberg, a senior lecturer at the University of Westminster, has actually suggested that bid rigging is an inevitable consequence of an industry where firms have to incur significant costs up front when submitting bids which they only recoup if they win.

My overriding hope is that the whole mess gets sorted sooner rather than later.

But what a great unauthorised purchase. I wholeheartedly recommend Birmingham: Shaping the City by Ben Flatman to one and all.

It starts with a handy reminder of our proud architectural heritage and an explanation of where it all went wrong after the War. Ben doesn't mince his words when describing "the damage wreaked upon the city" by "notorious acts of architectural vandalism". Next, Ben highlights projects which have contributed to our recent urban regeneration. And it is a pretty eclectic mix. For each, you get the details of the construction team and the actual cost, some great pictures (courtesy of photo editor, Craig Holmes) and an analysis of the architectural merits. The book ends with the hopes and aspirations of Ben and others for the future.