I am a taxidermist, a male go-go dancer and occasional window cleaner. In many ways I am very similar to St Peter. I deny my true history, not three times as he did, but far more regularly. I do everything I can to cover up my dirty little secret - that for 24 years I was in investment banking. Why? Because by the time this bear market is fully understood, to have been involved at all and to have profited as a stock market expert will be a cause for contempt among right-thinking people.

As our friends, families and neighbours continue to lose more and more money, we will be as shunned as a mediaeval plague ship. When our friends and clients find out the facts as to how we have cheated them, we will be as chewing gum on their shoes. Read your Financial Times. There are well over 50 funds listed there which in any other business would have had their managers put in jail. I refer to the mega takers. Consider, for example, Fund X (I can't give you its name.) In this fund, the management charges and other costs taken out over the last 10 years are more than the current size of the fund. It is not just one fund that has done this - as of the end of June I have so far found more than 50.