The Editorial for this issue focuses on neither sub-prime nor distressed building societies, nor fissures in the regulatory structure, nor flaws in the central bank nor the weltanschauung of the central banker. While observing a truly British bank run was very interesting (this incorporated two British virtues; a distrust of institutional counter-parties and a propensity to queue), it is now clear that a vast amount of seminars will be devoted to the summer of 2007 and it will join Barings and Orange County as a textbook example.

This Editor believes that financial life will continue and new entities will emerge and so the Editorial is devoted to a new organisation. This is a quantitative finance focus group called the London Quant Group (LQG). The LQG will provide conferences and seminars for individuals and should complement excellent existing organisations such as INQUIRE(UK) or the Q-GROUP. These organisations provide the same services for companies. Such individual-oriented organisations already exist in the US and provide a successful low-cost format.

It is my understanding that the LQG will be not-for-profit, will not fund academic research, and will aim to reduce financial flows by separating out hotel costs from conference costs, for example. This seems to me to be a very desirable innovation that should benefit the finance community and may even make the summer of 2007 even less likely in the future. Interested readers can find more details at www.lqg.org.uk.