Back when only bankers cared about bonuses, David Charters, a former head of equity capital markets at Deutsche Bank, published a short novel about a downtrodden, insecure, unproductive investment banker called Dave Hart.

It was intended to be a humorous insight into a world that most people will never know, a world where all that really counts is the number you get given on bonus day. It's a tale given added piquancy by the furore over this year's bonus round.