November 2008: Robert Peston's Blog

The Blog of the Month for November is Robert Peston's. While many are harrumphing, facing the existential calamity of having to consider downsizing their Baked Beans, others have greeted the crisis of democratic capitalism with something approaching glee: hardened Marxists, bailiffs, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Gordon Brown, Peter Mandleson and certain London curry houses. But no one has profited more from all the glorious doom than the BBC's financial editor. The man who broke the Northern Rock story over a year ago, Mr Peston sounds like a Dalek and looks like the current Doctor Who. That is, he both terrifies and entertains the kids, usually at the same time.

While it is a little off-putting that he moves his hands like Tony Blair on acid, Robert Peston has, despite no real physical presentational ability whatsoever, become a broadcasting icon. Or, dare I say it so brazenly early, an institution. Although his bizarre style gets in the way of his content, such is the man's gift for simple exegesis and concise analysis, that he is now a Titan ruling through his own Golden Age.

For those still knocking out obituary columns for the local paper, this is something like the elixir of journalistic life. Mr Peston can soon expect an appearance on ice, a new book, a guest spot on a celebrity singing contest (perhaps viewers will cast points by buying or selling shares in television presenter commodities), a TV series (Peston in Preston - Robert links the rise of the British aerospace industry in the Lancashire city to the sublime balance of Tom Finney), an offer of marriage from a Cheeky Girl followed by a long honeymoon in which he can bask in the glow of his extraordinary rise to the centre of British consciousness. We are all Pestons now. If he were American, they would already be casting.

This blog features the blogger's customary flair for succinct explanation. Read it and pretend you know what is happening. Read it and you too will be able to sit in pubs persuading others that you know what is happening. The Big R is here and Robert Peston is your guide through it. He understands what's actually happening. (Or, at least, pretend to do so very well indeed.)

Garan Holcombe