Prosecute over bribes allegedly paid in far-flung lands years before you banned such practices?

That’s the bluff from Britain’s Serious Fraud Office and its biggest defence firm, BAE Systems, is having none of it.

The Lockheed scandal of the 1970s forced the United States to toughen its anti-bribery laws but the British quietly left their laws wide open for decades.

It worked a treat.

UK firms enjoyed a competitive advantage over U.S. rivals and were able to do battle in arms exports versus freewheeling rivals from France, Germany, Russia and beyond.

BAE is now Europe’s biggest defence company and has even cracked the Top 10 in sales to the Pentagon.

Britain’s economy has profited too, especially from the Al Yamamah arms-for-oil export pact with Saudi Arabia – at an estimated 43 billion pounds ($69 billion) by far the country’s biggest ever export deal.

Remember it? It’s the one the Serious Fraud Office probed until late 2006 when then Prime Minister Tony Blair, under pressure from the Saudis and citing national security, quashed it.

Turning a blind eye is sometimes hard, but a 43 billion pound eye patch does wonders.

The Serious Fraud Office has been smarting ever since.

So it is back, mounting a stand, hoping to reassert its authority with a case involving BAE and far smaller defence deals done in South Africa, the Czech Republic and Tanzania.

It’s true, regulation is back in vogue, with politicians busy talking the world back out of recession and vowing tougher rules to avert another financial meltdown.

Little about how they all missed this crisis, but a lot on the great ideas they have for spotting it next time.

The Serious Fraud Office’s sleight-of-hand is even more breathtaking.

They want time travel — to use today’s laws to prosecute yesterday’s crimes.

Can they be serious?

London's transport bosses are telling travellers on the tube system to beat the heat by carrying a bottle of water with them when they venture underground.

But how many of us are refilling our bottles with tap water rather than pouring money down the tube -- not to mention the cost of recycling the plastic bottles -- by buying a new bottle of water each day?

Cue the National Hydration Council whose eye-catching advertising campaign to encourage people to buy more "naturally sourced bottled water" -- on health grounds -- featured prominently on the underground network earlier this year.

The worrying thing for the bottled water lobby is not that people are doing what would appear to be the most sensible thing and refilling their bottles from the tap, but that Britons are replacing bottled water with sugary drinks instead.

We're told that sales of bottled water fell by 7 percent last year, with 71 percent of that decline the result of people buying sweet drinks instead. Good news for the soft drinks industry perhaps, but a worry for health officials.

Meanwhile, beneath the streets of London, the hot and flustered faces of fellow tube passengers shows just how dire it is on board the capital's underground trains when the mercury rises.

With a decent air-conditioning system on most lines a distant prospect, Transport for London (TfL) could show it cares by offering each of its cash-strapped passengers a free TfL water bottle and the opportunity to refill them at its stations.

They say nostalgia isn’t what it used to be but there’s certainly a lot of it around at the moment.

All sorts of things are coming back as the recession forces us to cut back spending and, in some cases, change our habits quite radically.

Take Spam, for example. This deeply unlovely but cheap pork luncheon meat died a death after World War Two and was thankfully never heard of again apart from in the classic Monty Python song. Now it’s back and flying off the shelves by all accounts.

Allotments are also going great guns, with news this week that there’s a waiting list of 40 years in some parts of London.

And now hitch-hiking seems to be making a tentative return.

After the heady years of the 1960s and 1970s, hitching dropped out of fashion as car ownership took off and the view took hold that anyone standing by the road with their thumb stuck out must, by definition, be a murdering psychopath.

Most of them were, of course, but some were just savouring the joy of the open road and getting from A to B, from home to college or down to the rock festival for free.

A lot of the best hitching spots — like laybys just after roundabouts — have long since disappeared in road improvement schemes but there must still be a few good ones around. Any recommendations? 

Do you think hitching could ever come back? Would you be prepared to offer a ride? 

Spring is making a cautious appearance in London now and with it a growing number of cyclists are venturing out onto the streets of the capital.

I also noticed, as I rode south towards the Smithfield meat market last week, another less welcome sign of the season -- a ghost bike. This one had only been there for a few days.

The ghosts are white-painted bikes chained to a railing or a lamp post near where a cyclist has died in a traffic accident. I've spotted a few of these rather grim memorials in London, and they can also be seen in other cities in Britain and around the world.

Cycling has become more popular in London, perhaps because people want to do something for the environment, and also perhaps to escape the bombers after the city's public transport system was struck in 2005. But as the ghost bikes show, there can still be a price to pay.

Bankers are having a rough time of it lately.  It is not just that their companies are collapsing beneath them and their bonuses are the subject of global hate and derision. They also have to put up with the barbs of journalists (who are very familiar with being at the bottom of the popularity pile).

The latest example comes from Tim Dowling, scribbling away for Britain's Guardian newspaper.  Mr Dowling has penned a useful primer for bankers who suddenly find themselves living in the real world.

You can read the complete guide by clicking here.  But Global Investing's favourite tip concerns the use of London's celebrated buses:

"When a bus comes into view, raise your right hand as if you were hailing a taxi. Get on at the front and tell the driver where you are going. He will name a price. Haggling is frowned upon, as is suggesting a route. Buses have no business class as such, but the top deck, if there is one, offers superior views."

So cruel. So very cruel.

Conservative Swindon council is planning to pull the plug on the 400,000-pound annual grant it makes towards running its speed cameras, saying the money could be better spent on other traffic-calming measures.

Its head of highways, Councillor Peter Greenhalgh, is widely quoted in newspapers as saying cameras are “a blatant tax on motorists.”

Local councils can no longer keep the fines the cameras bring in, which may explain why they may feel less enthusiastic about them than before, but there are plenty of other bodies like the AA which have always felt cameras are over-used and no substitute for active policing.

The Department for Transport says some 1,745 deaths and serious injuries are prevented every year by the cameras.

Would you be happy to see other councils follow Swindon’s example or do you believe that speed cameras are a necessary evil to improve road safety?