Dear listener.

I was in Folkestone this week. I only mention that because people there are looking forward – rightly or wrongly – to rising house prices. That’s because new high speed Japanese trains travelling at up to 140 mph on the new Channel Tunnel rail line will slash journey times from much of the Kent coast to London by the end of next year.

The rest of the country fears tumbling house prices (or looks forward to them depending on your point of view) and the latest figures give little comfort (or a lot if you want them to fall). Anyway this week the government stepped in with…

**…a £1bn boost to the HOUSING MARKET. But will it really cost £1bn? And will it really boost the housing market? We’re still trying to get a minister to talk to us. But whether we do or not, an estate agent, mortgage lenders, and a debt specialist all comment on the plans.

It should have been a good month for Alistair Darling. After all, most taxpayers will get a £60 tax rebate this month and will pay £10 less tax every month after that. If only he hadn’t distracted us all by telling a Guardian journalist that we faced economic times which “are arguably the worst they've been in 60 years… And I think it's going to be more profound and long-lasting than people thought.” It was honest Alistair, but was it sensible?

** We’ll be talking about that TAX REBATE. What will it – and won’t it – do? And how does it affect those over 65? A source of much confusion not least in many local HMRC offices.

It was the week of the dog that didn’t bark. No change in the bank rate as the Monetary Policy Committee decided to balance the competing claims to cut rates to boost the economy ,or raise them to control inflation, by doing nothing. No truth though in the rumour that future MPC meetings will move from the boardroom to the fence outside the Bank of England.

And an announcement that there would not be an announcement on a cash payment to help some families with rising fuel bills. Instead homes would be better insulated. Now why has no-one thought of that before? (** we may mention this in the programme).

** 15,935 people are very glad the government introduced the PENSION PROTECTION Fund. Without it they might have got nothing when their pension scheme collapsed. Now their pensions are being paid (some at a lower rate) by the PPF. But are well managed pension funds paying too high a price for those that fail?

** It’s decision time for more than half a million people with shares in ALLIANCE & LEICESTER. They have to vote on plans to sell the bank to Spanish suitor Santander. Acting chairman Roy Brown has warned shareholders of significant “risks” if the deal doesn’t go ahead. He needs 75% of those voting to say “yes” for it to go through.

** And what is the point of owning a car when it spends most of the time sitting outside your house doing nothing? CAR CLUBS are intended to solve that problem. But do they make financial sense?

If you’ve got this far you’ll have noticed the ** asterisks. They don’t replace rude words said by the Chancellor to a Guardian journalist. They are for those of you who get bored by me wittering on so you can leap straight to the ** and the CAPITALS to see what we expect to be on the programme. And those paras that don’t have asterisks won’t be in the programme. They are just me wittering on – albeit about stuff I think we both might find interesting. Just an experiment. Let me know what you think.

Money Box is on Saturday at noon and repeated on Sunday at nine pm. And there’s a podcast, Have your Say, lots of links, previous programmes, transcripts, and loads of other stuff on our website bbc.co.uk/moneybox.

Best wishes,

Paul Lewis

PS No taster on BBC One Breakfast this Saturday – sorry! But you can still see last week’s on the website!

e-mail Paul Lewis