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p>Shortly before stepping down as Governor of the Bank of England, Sir Mervyn King faced the BBC's most polite form of interrogation - by putting in an appearance on Desert Island Discs.
Apparently, Sir Mervyn has never been kept awake at night by the financial crisis because he knew "exactly what we had to do". There was no trace of arrogance in his statement – rather, it seemed that his phenomenal academic achievements as a young man left no hiding place when it came to grasping the nettle of RBS, and the various other banking catastrophes of the last few years.
But Sir Mervyn is on his way out, to be replaced in July by Bank of Canada's Mark Carney, who will take up a crucial role in UK financial services without having revealed to the nation which book and luxury object will be in his grasp when he washes ashore.
(On a point of interest, Mervyn King opted for a big picture book - well the complete illustrated catalogue of the National Gallery to be precise, and a telescope.)
So what do we know about Mark Carney?
He was born in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, and received a bachelor’s degree in economics from Harvard University in 1988. He went on to receive a masters degree in economics in 1993, and a doctorate in economics in 1995 - both from Oxford.
Prior to joining the public service, Mr Carney had a 13-year career with Goldman Sachs in its London, Tokyo, New York and Toronto offices - so far so good. But the UK is littered with bankers with impressive CVs, and I am therefore wondering if some potential home-grown Bank of England governors saw the job as something of a poison chalice.
And now for a few more of my own observations:
Mr Carney is arriving from Canada, where the national game is ice hockey; people drive on the right and generally prefer maple syrup to Marmite.
He will be leaving behind a next-door neighbour in the form of the US which, as Canada's biggest trading partner, will have been impacting monetary policy big time.
He will be taking command on an island which doesn't really consider it has any next-door neighbours, as Europe is still "over there".
As a colonial, he is unlikely to slip into the comfortable British way of doing things when it comes to the Bank of England and HM Treasury, and in terms of GDP, the switch from Canada to the UK is something of a jump up the ice hockey league.
So why did we employ him?
Well, Mr Carney has a reputation as a super-banker, but his appointment led to an outburst by New Statesman blogger, Dan McCurry, who is convinced that this image had been largely created by George Osborne.
According to the Chancellor, Carney "has done a brilliant job for the Canadian economy as its central bank Governor, avoiding big bail outs and securing growth".
Ah! But has Osborne missed something?
Because according to Mark Carney, when dealing with the financial crisis, "the broad economic strategy in Canada has been to grow domestic demand and to encourage Canadian businesses to retool and reorient to the new global economy". I really hope he has a richer strategy up his sleeve for the UK.
Is it possible that George Osborne's lauding of Mark Carney for "strong leadership and a fresh new perspective" didn't take into account Canada's conservative banking sector?
Then there's the question of "strong leadership": Where is the evidence? What kind of strong leadership is required when deep perils await either side of a shift in the base rate?
In my experience, strong leadership doesn't necessarily equate to "staying power" of the kind exhibited by Mervyn King in the long and weary years since 2007.
We do have a few quotes from Mr Carney to help fill in the blanks, with recent words from his own mouth as follows:
"Europe can draw lessons from Japan on the dangers of half measures."
"The first line of defence against a buildup of financial imbalances is responsible behaviour by individuals and institutions."
"The flexibility that central banks may require, both to address the consequences of the crisis and to reduce the risk of a repeat, raises a fundamental question about the appropriate constraints on central banks’ delegated authority."
Hmm ... but none of that really addresses my deepest concern- will Mark Carney's arrival at the Bank of England see the abandonment of that peculiarly British term "somewhat", which is often repeated by The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street as she communicates on lending, economic growth, inflation and so on?
I hope not. For a true leader in a lengthy crisis needs to understand the value of "somewhat", if only to resist the temptation of attributing a "somewhat" outcome to a half measure!
That being said, I truly hope that at the end of Mark Carney's tenure at the Bank, we all smell like the sweetest, most fragrant maple syrup. In the mean time I will do my best to banish more disturbing images of being stuck in some dark and sticky goo from my mind.
Shortly before stepping down as Governor of the Bank of England, Sir Mervyn King faced the BBC's most polite form of interrogation - by putting in an appearance on Desert Island Discs....
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