Kingfisher promised a DIY job on reviving B&Q. Has it worked, or is it just a Screwfix fix?
Britain's husbands (if you excuse the generalisation) are wearily accustomed to cynicism from their wives, after insisting a faltering do-it-yourself project will look great in the end.
As most amateurs eventually admit, the incredulous reaction is usually shrewd, which is why botching your own plumbing is proving less and less popular compared with hiring a pro.
Similarly, the City invoked disbelieving looks when execs from B&Q owner Kingfisher kept promising that, despite tricky markets, its "self-help" plan to revive the retailer would eventually look like a professional job.
But, unlike its customers, the execs are now proudly showcasing their handiwork: the shares, which for years wobbled like a cheap barbecue, surged last year; meanwhile, as Kingfisher unveils results this week, there's talk of returning money to shareholders.
Still, surging profits at its Screwfix business put a gloss on falls at B&Q. So there remains a slight worry that, like an embattled husband, somebody has papered over the odd crack.
King Digital heads for Crushing market debut
Wall Street is partying like it's 1999 – which you may recall was the peak of the dotcom bubble. Five flotations launched on Friday alone, raising $572m (£347m) and taking the number of US initial public offerings to 53 for 2014 – Investors.com reports – up from 30 at the same point last year.
Another nine floats are expected this week, and there's a big one of interest here. King Digital Entertainment, the London computer games firm behind the hit Candy Crush Saga, is to make history as the most valuable UK internet company to join the stock markets, at $7.6bn. That will help crystallise another fortune for former Derby County director, Melvyn Morris, who owns 12.2%, not to mention private equity group Apax, whose initial $63m investment is worth about $3.6bn.
No wonder, then, that concerns about King's reliance on Candy Crush, which accounts for 78% of its bookings, seem to have been drowned out by a $567.6m profit and the buoyant mood. Nothing can possibly go wrong.
The joke could be on you too, George
Given that the chancellor seems to consider politics far more deeply than economics, has the Treasury select committee got the invitations to the hearings on last week's budget right?
On Tuesday we'll hear from Michael Saunders, head of European economics at Citi, Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, and Robert Chote, chairman of the Office for Budget Responsibility – although one wonders if Nate Silver, the fashionable psephologist, might be more fitting.
The stand-out memories of last week's set piece remain a radical shake-up of savings and pensions (in what looked like an attempt to prevent defections to Ukip), plus an excellent joke about the Magna Carta's 800th anniversary at Ed Miliband's expense.
Still, 2015 is also the 200th anniversary of the battle of Waterloo which – as others have noted before – provides Miliband with a fictional riposte. In the novel Vanity Fair, the battle proved the end for one rather irresponsible bounder, cheating him of his expected inheritance. His name? George Osborne.