I have one Madoff story. In 2004 I visited Bernard Madoff and his son Mark to pitch to them on participating in a fund of funds I was trying to start that invested only in funds that made private investments in public equities. They weren't interested - too much stigma attached to Pipes, and they wanted to stay clear of anything that could potentially hurt their reputation. (I marketed myself as having "cleansed" the Pipe space for investors but they didn't want to take chances.) Strange things happen in strange times. And the survivors live to fight another day. But some don't survive.

Mr Madoff's alleged $50bn fraud, the credit crisis and the collapse of the financial markets worldwide have been precursors to a sickening epidemic that is taking hold in the financial industry. In the past two weeks I have heard of two people who took their lives: one was a 27-year-old stockbroker with two children, and the other, a cousin of a friend of mine, was a hedge fund manager also with children. And there was the horrifying death of Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, a French money manager who had placed $1.4bn with Mr Madoff.