Okay, first of all, it's the 21st Century, and we're too evolved - for good or bad - to be embarrassed about debt... it's no longer a moral issue. I'm aware of that. However, what does a London estate agent have to gain from identifying herself and blabbing this to Reuters?

Angie Liston, a real estate agent and first-time pawner who received 400 pounds against a gold necklace and her husband's watch, said she was surprised by how efficient the process was. "(Getting the money) was very easy to do and it was better than standing all day queuing at the bank," she said when leaving a north London pawnshop. "This will sort out some extra bills we have and I'm sure we'll give it another go come the time."

Even a broker herself - simply commenting, later in the piece, about movements in the gold market - refuses to give her name. And I'm pretty confident that - even if I was caught completely and utterly by surprise by the pushiest reporter in all of Reuters, while actually leaving a pawnbrokers, minus my trousers, my right hand clutching a tenner - I'd deny all knowledge of the place. I wouldn't give my name and talk about how much I got for my cargoes... and how I'm so saddled with debt I'm going to return later and offer them my underpants.

The piece, written from an American perspective, first identifies the UK as a country "saturated in debt" with "insolvencies... running at record levels", and then attempts to link this to a piece following the growth of the "upmarket" pawnbroking sector.

"Over the last three to four years, we have noticed the amount of professionals coming into our stores increase," said marketing manager David Towse of pawnbrokers Harvey and Thompson.

I'm not convinced that anybody chooses a pawnbroker over a bank because the queues are shorter. Nor am I convinced that most people are as candid and happy about using a pawnbroker as our estate agent friend. The problem is that the kind of object pawnbrokers like... gold objects... are often the things we least like to part with, because they're the things traditionally imbued with sentimental value... gifts or things inherited. Here's how the feature ends:

Pawnbrokers suggest a newly-wed couple could pawn their gold rings to cover the cost of a honeymoon more easily than with a standard loan.

Nice. Read the whole thing here.

NB The Rat and Mouse isn't entirely convinced Angie Liston exists.

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