Dear listener,

Christmas is coming and the newsletter is getting fat! Money Box is always (just about) broadcast live on Saturday from BBC HQ in White City. But the Saturday after Christmas we are getting a day off! Largely because Thursday and Friday are, well, a bit busy cooking, drinking, unwrapping etc. So the programme on 27th is pre-recorded just before Christmas and for what’s in it scroll down. But this newsletter is also fatter than normal with two programmes to set out.

*** ON MONEY BOX THIS SATURDAY (20TH) ***

The banks may need yet more money from the public purse (and if you are wondering how big that purse is to hold hundreds of billions of pounds the answer is “bottomless”). Despite that the Council of Mortgage Lenders has warned this week that arrears on home loans will rise and so will the repossessions that follow a few months behind. Where is the bail out for them? The CML boss explains. And we get a view on where the mortgage market will go in 2009.

Pensions – the fact that 95,000 public sector pensions have been over paid for decades just shows how infernally complex the interaction of the state pension with salary related pensions is. We ask the bigger question of the cost of public sector pensions – estimated to be close on £1 trillion this week – and ask if “gold-plated” is the correct adjective for them. Should it be “solid gold” or perhaps “fair reward”?

Bereavement – a Money Box listener who went to the building society to tell them his wife was dead and sort out the mortgage was sold insurance he didn’t want or need. How should banks and building societies deal with the newly bereaved?

The winter has been nipping at our toes, especially in Scotland and the north of England. In fact it has been cold enough in many places to trigger a Cold Weather Payment. But what’s the difference between a Cold Weather Payment. A Winter Fuel Payment, and a Christmas Bonus? We find out.

And that is not – but could be – a question from the Money Box Christmas Quiz. Yes. It’s back. And this time it’s all online and you are marked as you answer each question. My embarrassing confession is that I only got 18 out of 20! And I wrote some of the questions!! Which just shows how fiendishly difficult some of them are. Sorry but there’s no prize – red tape and paperwork to blame. And as a newsletter reader you can be one of the first to do it – click here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/moneybox/7775030.stm

*** ON MONEY BOX NEXT SATURDAY (27TH) ***

Have we caused the housing crisis? In the past we moved house to get closer to where we earned our living or when we formed – or ended – a relationship or had children (or more of them). But was the rise and rise of house prices caused because we forgot that and looked on a house as an investment or a pension or even a moneybox? Rather than shelter for us and our loved ones or somewhere to chill (or veg) out at the end of a hard day? We debate what housing is for and whether we have recently got it badly wrong.

And…we bring you the thrills and excitement of a property auction.

All that – possibly a bit more, possibly a bit less – in Money Box on BBC Radio 4 on Saturday (this and next) at noon, repeated Sunday (this and next) at nine. You can listen to all the items on all our programmes through our website. Money Box is available as a podcast you can download or subscribe to. And if you want to read what was said we publish a transcript every week by late Monday or early Tuesday. Even over Christmas.

Best wishes,

And happy Christmas from me and the whole Money Box team.

Paul

PS Don’t forget the programme taster on BBC Breakfast between quarter to nine and nine o’clock (20th only). If you miss it, you can watch it on the web.

And if you missed last week’s – about how the fall in the pound affects British pensioners living outside the UK - you can see it here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7781361.stm

e-mail Paul Lewis