there are two or maybe three books about siegmund warburg, three if you count the book about the entire warburg family, two if you only count my book and the other biography of warburg. jack, incidentally, was for many years francois mitterand's close confidant. it's a biography exclusively based, as far as i can tell, on the imagination. [laughter] my book is based on reading my way through about 10,000 letters and diary entries and memoranda which warburg kept in the course of his life. unlike many financiers, i should explain, warburg was a remarkably prolific writer, and that for a biographer is a huge advantage. now, i don't really know quite why you would need to ask the question, why bankers. when you reflect on the events of the last three years, it should be obvious that bankers are historically important. and i would go so far as to say more important than actresses. [laughter] perhaps even more important than princesses. for if anything has shaped our lives in the last three years, it's been a financial crisis which many people are inclined to blame entirely on bankers. now,