If you had purchased £1000 of Northern Rock shares one year ago it would now be worth £4.95; With HBOS, earlier this week your £1000 would have been worth £16.50 and £1000 invested in XL Leisure would now be worth less than £5.  But, if you bought £1000 worth of Tennents Lager one year ago, drank it all, then took the empty cans to an aluminium recycling plant, you would get £214. So based on the above statistics the best current investment advice is to drink heavily and recycle.

(Now if I had written this it would not refer to Tennents Lager…)