Local Man Relieved After Abbey Purchase
Luke Street resident Dave Elsan, 19, was today said to be relieved after banking group Santander, who own Abbey, purchased failed Bradford & Bingley.
B&B this week became the latest victim of the banking crisis, following swiftly behind Lehman Brothers and HBOS; and was broken up for sale. “I was petrified,” said Elsan. “The girl on their adverts is the fittewst person ever to wear a bowler hat.”
Bradford & Bingley's current star
So upset was Elsan that he immediately resurrected his parents VCR to record the building society’s latest advert before it was pulled from our screens.
However, this weekend he received the welcome news that Abbey’s parent group were planning to retain not only the Bradford & Bingley brand, but also its current advertising campaign, which features Sophia De Martino wearing the trademark bowler hat. “I saw her on Channel 4 one afternoon and I was smitten,” admits Elsan, who still lives with his parents in their Eynesbury home. “I know it’s just a girl from an advert but what can you do eh? If an attractive young lady is not a reason to financially cripple yourself with a mortgage or loan I don’t know what is.”
Bradford & Bingley is the latest victim of the international banking crises, closely related to the credit crunch. Following the collapse of Northern Roack last year, other banks have followed suit, including massive superbank Halifax Bank of Scotland, or HBOS, which has since been purhcased by Lloyds TSB.. This will leave yet another empty bank on St Neots High Street, to replace Woolwich which recently became Costa Coffee. Town Council spokesman Sean Crock said, “There’s always been at least one empty bank in St Neots, ever since Lloyds took over TSB many years ago. It would have been a shame to end this tradition and I hope Lloyds follow their previous plan of closing co-located branches.”
CERN spokeman Guillaume la Trec said today, “Nobody ‘as yet attributed ze collapse of zese banks to ze Large Hadron Collider, but I expect zey will so I will get in first. Personally, I am glad HBOS is no longer around, it sounds like an end-of-level boss from a 90′s Megadrive game.”
