Dear listener,

Good grief, is it really five weeks since I was last here? It doesn’t feel it. Not least because I have actually been working most of that time on other things. And since you ask, yes I did go away – to China – and no it wasn’t for the Olympics but for that much more remarkable event - a total eclipse of the Sun. It is a heart-stopping moment when the moon covers the sun’s disc and the corona, which we cannot normally see, springs into life, a shimmering halo around the black hole. The Chinese staff at the motorway service station where we watched from (I know, the glamour!) gave an audible gasp as it happened. And I confess there were tears in my eyes too.

Motorway? Service station? In China? Yes. The country is going infrastructure mad. A major new road network is being built complete with tolls. The first bullet train was inaugurated while I was there. And subway systems are being bored in the cities. Beijing’s was massively extended for the Olympics – the line to the stadium is inevitably line 8 – and it costs just 25p for a single journey anywhere. Better and cheaper than sitting in a taxi on Beijing’s six lane roads which one driver complained were a “parking lot” for much of the day.

In this new booming economy, China’s financial concerns are very much as they are here – inflation at 7.1% and, believe it or not, fear of repossessions as property prices fall.

At the end of the last series I asked, “When will the credit crunch end?” And this week a special edition of Money Box will try to answer that question. I fear that the answer will not be as clear – or as comforting – as you would like.

It will also examine how the crunch has changed the way we spend, borrow and save. And yes, I will be asking some of the banks why they didn’t see it coming. And who is going to pay for their $1 trillion losses? Plus (don’t tell the producer) maybe, just maybe, I’ll sneak in some information about where the phrase “credit crunch” actually came from and what it really means.

That’s enough from me for now. I hope you enjoyed Alvin Hall’s World of Money over the summer as much as I did. No chance of me ever being super-rich. Or keeping a case of wine long enough for it to be an investment! But I have seen a total eclipse of the Sun. So I can die happy.

This week Money Box is not repeated on Sunday as it usually is. But you can hear it again in a longer version (I know, I found that concept difficult too!) on Monday at 3pm. Next week timings will be back to normal as the series proper returns. You can of course download the programme or listen online. What a lifesaver that is during the holiday period.

Best wishes,

Paul Lewis

PS There is no live taster on breakfast TV this Saturday. They start next week.

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