Chris Thompson   Chris Thompson on the internet

I’m a little worried about debt. Because I’m starting a post-graduate course on the first of February, and whilst I am very excited about it, the finance part of it does worry me.

The fees are like all college or university fees: horrendously expensive. So expensive that the only way I can really afford it is to take out a career development loan. Thankfully this, as far as loans go, is quite nice: you pay no interest over your course, and you don’t even start paying it back until it’s finished.

It is different to a student loan, though, because it feels like a very real debt. The student loan goes away if you haven’t paid it off by a certain time. You don’t need to start paying it until you’re earning a certain amount of money. But this, this is a real loan, with real money that will need to start being paid back pretty quickly.

I’ve tried looking for debt advice. There are websites out there that can usually help with this sort of thing. Or, at the very least, give you information on it. Tell you your choices. There are websites like This is Money, which specialise in giving you the latest up to date news on all things finance, as well.

In fact, a quick Google shows all sorts of money advice websites, much like this.

None of them touch on my main worry, though. With my course starting so quickly, what it my loan application falls through? What if I’m left stranded in the middle of a course that I then can’t pay for?

I suppose the only option then would be to look at the other options my bank offers: personal loans, or some of their other loans that you can supposedly apply for in a matter of minutes online. But they worry me even more than the career development one does…

I don’t think today has been a very good one, as far as news goes anyway. And I suppose, when it comes down to it, it hasn’t been a good week for news, either. I found one story, which is still floating around here, about someone who has set fire to their own car with a discarded cigarette butt. If you need a good reason to stop smoking, you have one there: if you’re not careful, you could blow yourself up.

Of course, such dark happenings must be the result of global warming. That is, after all, what seems to cause everything these days. Just the other day, I wrote about sheep shrinking in Scotland, and how they’re blaming it on global warming. It’s hot, and it’s not summer, it’s global warming. It rains, and it’s global warming. The other day I walked through Colchester in such a good mood that I went to my bank account, and, in the process of getting some money out of the cash machine, left before I had even taken the money. I took the card, and strolled off without a second thought. Of course, this is something that would happen at all banks if you’re as foolish as I was – but I was eager, excited, and probably too tired. So I strolled off, despite the insistent beeping of the machine, and someone had a very nice surprise awaiting them on the high street. And that, too, was probably global warming.

I decided to skim read the local paper, it was so riddled with gloom. Low credit ratings were as heavily featured as the football reports, and there is always a lot of football to report. It made for rather depressing reading. There were some reviews of films showing at the local arts theatre, and a handful of other light-hearted things, but they couldn’t do much to penetrate the brooding cloud of the recession.

The only real light at the end of the tunnel – or so one advert said – was to look into off shore bank accounts in order to get your savings on track. That’s when you know it’s a dull read.