I take absolutely no pleasure in seeing formerly revered financial institutions being slowly spit-roasted in public. I watched with great sadness as my old firm, Kidder, Peabody & Co, was turned from a white-shoe Wall Street investment bank that could hold its head up high into a tacky bucket-shop. My main regret was that the avaricious louts – they called themselves bond traders – who were responsible for the transformation were not frog-marched off to the slammer.

The fall from grace of the once-mighty Credit Suisse is worthy of a novel which would be a bestseller at airports. All the ingredients are there. You have boardroom intrigue and skulduggery and a playboy chairman and chief executive who looped the loop when it came to pricing acquisitions and left his shareholders in the dark. Loans were granted to suspect corporate customers in Europe and in Asia that never stood a prayer of being repaid. The investment banking subsidiary based its code of business practice on the pirate captains Blackbeard and Morgan. The investment bank's motto might have been: "Pile up the treasure, take no prisoners, fill your own boots and let the regulators catch up if they can." What a pity that there is no book, but I am reliably told that the respected Swiss financial publication, Bilanz, will shortly be publishing a story which will make our eyes roll and make Credit Suisse squirm even more.