Banking on Dave to win

Some people don't like banks.

I do, me. I like banks.

Banks are a stable and benevolent force in society - a little like insurance companies.

I like banks and insurance companies.

I like their names: names like Sovereign, Prudential, State, Guardian, Reliance, and Sentry.

Those are names to be reckoned with - names a man can trust.

Those are names that make a man feel he is being taken gently, lifted upward and held in the soft, fat, fleshy white arms of good fortune and conservative common sense. Banks are good.

But not everyone feels the same.

This came as something of a surprise to me - I did not realise these subversive views were out there.

Take David Fishwick.

David Fishwick is a self-made millionaire.

''The bastard banks,'' he says, as he slides into the plush front seat of his late model car.

''Fifty billion quid. How can you lose fifty billion quid and still pay bonuses?''

David clearly lives in England, judging by his strange accent.

Perhaps English banks are different from our own - David seems to think they are not up to much.

That much is made clear by the narrator's voice-over in the Bank of Dave on the Living channel.

Bank of Dave is on after Christmas.

I like Christmas, but more on that later.

Mr Fishwick wants to open ''a tiny, tiny bank''.

He wants to get his home town of Burnley up and running again - or so he says.

He wants to give people 5% interest, lend to local businesses and give any profits to charity.

''Can a mini-bus dealer from the north of England do a better job than London's top bankers?'' the narrator asks. Maybe.

Check out Burnley Savings and Loans Ltd website and see what you think.

Or watch the show, where all is laid out in a more entertaining way, with a narrator to talk you through the whole issue.

Bank of Dave starts on December 29.

Before that, there is Christmas programming. Oh Joy.

Vibe, on Sky, for instance, has the ''entire'' third season of Glee on both Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve.

That means all of it.

Two days before Christmas, The Box has the WWE Tribute to the Troops, where half naked muscular American men get patriotic in an armed services sort of way.

Yes - it is weird.

Best of all, on UKTV, a foreign entertainment service where everybody has funny accents, there is the Queen's Christmas Message.

What will she say?

Will she tell a little joke? Can we expect some off-colour humour? Who is this Queen? All will out, friends, just two weeks hence.

I can't wait.

- Charles Loughery