You know those cinema drink ads full of good looking people in fashionable clobber having a whale of a time in up market bars where the final frame entreats you quietly in a corner to be responsible and drink in moderation.

Well the financial services industry, no doubt full of remorse at the part it played in the crisis of the last couple of years, has followed the drinks industry's lead. I got a replacement credit card in the post today and there was a little sticker on it with a message in block caps - "PLEASE SPEND RESPONSIBLY".

It was easily peeled off so if they genuinely want people to hold back they need to get a bit more hard hitting with a permanent reminder on the card. How about a range of Dickensian affinity cards? A picture of a debtors' prison or of Mr Micawber reciting his famous mantra. That would surely do the trick.