Credits roll for the doom-mongers and an ex-army major wielding mitts

So just who did predict the 2008 financial crisis first? Frank Kane takes a look and battles revisionist history.

Andy Murray's progression into the men's final at Wimbledon this year perked up an otherwise dull event. Julian Finney / Getty Images

So just who did predict the 2008 financial crisis first?

My old pal Jeff Randall of Sky News spent years railing against the explosion of personal and property credit in TheDaily Telegraph in the run-up to 2008.

Financial Times doyenne Gillian Tett warned of the dangerously inflated asset bubble caused by subprime mortgages and the market in collateralised debt obligations.

Superstar American economist Nouriel Roubini told everybody who would listen that global markets were heading for a fall, and was, of course, eventually proved right.

But I have recently come across another claimant to the title of "Doom-monger in chief", another old friend of mine, former journalist turned author and Hollywood "script-doctor" Martin Baker.

In 1995, he turned out A Fool and His Money, a punchy collection of essays on the general theme of the wackiness of global financial markets; then, just before the real crisis broke, he published Meltdown, a novel about a rogue trader who brings down a bank and sparks a global financial catastrophe.

Meltdown is in development for a Hollywood movie: "The Firm meets Wall Street meets The Bourne Identity" is how he describes it. A Fool and His Money has just been revised and updated. Reworking the book has obviously stirred him up a bit, especially regarding the FT's Tett.

"She's an admirable journalist - it's not her fault the establishment has to reinvent history and sanitise its loathing of those outside the walls, the whistle-blowers." Steady on.

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As promised last week, no football until August 18, but instead a bit of tennis.

I used to love playing tennis and also watching it, especially Wimbledon, but the former is a little too strenuous for me now, while the latter turned dull several years ago. Just when did the men's game deteriorate into baseline chess, just like the women's?

It was probably something to do with the enormously powerful rackets that roll off the industrial line now, but the tedium of baseline duelling just plain puts me to sleep.

That was until Andy Murray's progression into the men's final at Wimbledon this year. That was an event that could not be missed. And I was glad to accept an invitation from Nick Lunt, the head of M Communications in the Middle East, to watch the game at his apartment with a view of the Burj Khalifa.

It was a very good turnout, a mix of journalists, PR men, lawyers, even a local florist, so plenty of hot air was generated in the course of the match. The humidity inside the apartment almost matched that on the balcony.

Not everybody was 100 per cent behind Murray, a Scot who has made his distaste for things English (especially the football team) apparent. Several of the Anglos were rooting for the Swiss Roger Federer on account of this, which I found hard to understand. But in the end, when Murray (inevitably) lost, everybody was moved by his obvious emotion and disappointment. Even Federer looked embarrassed to have won, running his hands nervously through his hair during the TV interview. Or maybe that was to show off the Rolex (one of his sponsors) on his wrist.

So all good fun. But the highlight for me was the sight of Mr Lunt, a former major in a British army tank regiment, rigged out in pinafore and oven mitts serving vol-au-vents from the oven. Priceless.