FlatCrim

The hastily-arranged referendum in FlatCrim duly took place, and the result was no surprise. President Input got his desired result. The FlatCriminals cannot wait to be reunited with Northland. Various politicos from FlatUS and the League of Medland Nations (LMN) will huff and puff, but nobody will be sufficiently motivated to blow Input's house down. La Merkel is acutely embarrassed by the whole annexation episode, which is redolent of a previous local difficulty involving her own nation. President Input is even now negotiating a Sino-Northland natural gas deal that will enable him to turn off the gas pipelines on which many LMN nations depend, just to show them who is top banana.

Following a multiplicity of banking scandals, various FlatUS bodies are preparing to sue the major Flatbanks for rigging benchmark rates. They had better be quick about it, before all the Flatbanks disappear in a puff of illiquidity, and depositor bail-ins become the order of the day.

Flatland's Chief Financial Officer - a toff known as Gorgeous George - has caused a stir by effectively unlocking pension pots, From 2015, silver-haired savers will be siphoning off pension money and buying buy-to-let homes, which will delight readers of the Daily FlatMail, who think of little other than house prices. How Daily FlatMail readers reproduce is an arcane mystery, by stark contrast to FlatSun readers, whose every waking moments are dominated by beer, burgers and biology.

In his Budget, preceded by a photo-opportunity of him holding a red rectangle, Gorgeous George pulled a rabbit out the hat, with the reintroduction of the twelve-sided Flatbit. Apparently Decus et Tutamen has not been sufficient security for the existing Flatbit, and numerous forgeries are in circulation. Also, the Flatbit has depreciated in purchasing power very much to the level of the threepenny bit fifty years ago, during the height of Flatlemania, a nearly eightyfold change in value. Doubtless the new Flatbit will lose value just as rapidly, and in due course be replaced by some other fictional store of value.

Senator Chromatistes