Media Spotlight: Cityboy - 50 Ways To Survive The Crunch By Geraint Anderson and Sophie N. Lodge

21 September 2009 | By Natalie Thomas

There has been much finger-pointing and apportioning of blame, with weighty tomes telling everyone how inevitable the whole crisis was. And to be honest, it’s all wearing a bit thin.

Cityboy - 50 Ways To Survive The Crunch is none of the above. Cityboy, a.k.a. Geraint Anderson, has been a straight-talking columnist for the londonpaper for the past three years, taking the mick out of all those City types marching around Canary Wharf brandishing the Financial Times and a shiny briefcase.

Last week saw the end of an era with the last edition of the londonpaper and so the final curtain for Anderson’s take on jumped-up bankers living and working in The Smoke.

To clue in less avid readers of London tabloids, once upon a time the character of Cityboy was the embodiment of the heady days of excess - an uptight banker who wipes his bum with money like Patrick Bateman in American Psycho.

But alas, the crash has taken its toll. Cityboy’s fall from grace has echoed the paper’s demise in a classic case of life imitating art.

Gone are the liquid lunches, the cognac and so forth. Cityboy has been forced out of his useless job and his lavish lifestyle.

His reaction? “Act like a millionaire until my last penny - friends and neighbours alike will marvel at my financial resistance,” he says.50 Ways To Survive The Crunch is Cityboy’s guide to how to look flash when there’s less cash. Jokey tips are based around the idea that City types can dial back the cost of living while maintaining the mirage of extravagant wealth.

It includes such pearls of wisdom as tip number 17 - “Explain away your move from a posh house in Holland Park to a bedsit in Peckham by claiming you want to live in a more diversified area.”

And for those bankers whose four-figure mortgage payments are proving too much to bear Cityboy advises that if their houses are being repossessed they should assure everyone that they “just got out of property just in time”.

Another classic is tip number 49 - “If you feel your job is under threat, become pregnant immediately.”

But Cityboy does add that this tip is not for men, even those with a “decent set of man-boobs”.

The highlight is a section entitled Need-to-Know Crunch Terms. This defines a mortgage-backed security as an “asset that gives you no security whatsoever”, a stockbroker as a “total tosser who should be placed in the stocks” and sub-prime mortgages as “loans foolishly granted to Americans who can only afford cheap cuts of meat”.

Sadly, these gems are but highlights in what is otherwise a dull book. Of course, this book is not meant to be taken seriously but it is meant to raise a smile at least.

But the jokes get quite tired pretty quickly and although you want to find it funny, the book doesn’t show much of the panache of Anderson’s columns in the londonpaper.

So if you’re looking for a novelty stocking-filler to cosy up to a fellow mortgage broker with, my suggestion is to keep looking.

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