$$$ The history man and fatwa girl: Niall Ferguson has deserted wife Sue Douglas for Somali feminist [Daily Mail via Daily Intel]

$$$ German pensioners ‘kidnapped financial adviser’ [BBC]

$$$ Cash Money Records Founders Start An Oil Company [BI]

$$$ Should Individuals Be Regulated Like Wall St. Banks? [The Atlantic]

$$$ Toy Mogul Said To Buy Madoff Penthouse [Dealbook]

We don’t have to tell you bitching about bonuses is getting boring. Thankfully, the good people of Greenwich have nothing bad to say about them, and are actually just happy things are getting back to normal. They are spending like it’s 2005 all over again, although they admit that they’ll have to go about their business in a more demure manner this time around. Decency, and whatnot. “Last year was a big downer,” said Michelle Brunwasser, a partner in the chic Weber art gallery. “Things are definitely better now, and a lot of it has to do with the bonuses.”

The following post is by a hedge fund manager friend of DB who shall remain nameless. He runs the emerging markets desk at his firm.

It’s the financial version of Montezuma’s revenge! The meltdown in Western European sovereign credit has led to a Great Colonial Spread Reversal. Until now, only select Anglosphere colonies had posted tighter spreads than the old metropolis. Sovereign spreads embodied the tradition order when it came to Latin America. When Latam hit turbulence, investors looked at European bank and corporate exposures to the old colonies, or figured on expensive support packages and pushed the colonizers a tad wider. But the shades of some conquistadors this week are weeping in Hades, for their world has been turned upside down. Cortez and Cabral, call your office! Pizarro, take a peek at your portfolio! Mexico and Peru now trade tight to Spain. Brazil is sitting well inside Portugal. For the moment, the sacred memory of the Raj is safe - State Bank of India still trades 50bps wide to UKT - but Gandhi’s ghost may be rubbing his hands with anticipation while Clive sweats, as the spread is narrowing. France maintains a safe lead over francophone Africa as does Belgium with respect to Democratic Republic of Congo - for now!

IT GETS BETTER.

The guys at Citi are smarter than anyone else on the Street, which is why they are about to launch the first derivatives EVER that will pay out in the event of a financial crisis.

As Chris Whalen, at Institutional Risk Analytics, told us about the news: “It’s cute. Though a bit ironic coming from them.”Yes, it’s ironic and the mere concept could be funny if it weren’t that scary.

When we last checked in with beauty queen and Raj Rajaratnam gal-pal Danielle Chiesi, she didn’t have much to say re: whether or not she and her boy were guilty of insider trading, as has been alleged, preferring instead to let her new makeover do the talking. Today she opened up to Reuters’ Matt Goldstein to let the world know a couplea things, namely that there’s no way in hell she and Raj-Raj will do time, that the Galleon manager didn’t hurt anybody (except for the employee whose body was temporarily disabled by an electric shock) and that he’s the most generous man she’s ever known (this we know is true, as said tasee was paid 5 g’s for her time).

“There is not even a chance we will do one day in jail,” Chiesi said in a recent telephone interview. “We didn’t do anything wrong.”

She said she considers Rajaratnam a good friend and it is “an honor and a privilege” to stand next to him in court. She and Rajaratnam are due back in court on Feb. 11.

Literally, and not like, as a metaphor for the markets repeatedly slamming his nuts in a drawer. From today’s Sex Diary:

B, the CEO of a bank, likes for me to kick him repeatedly in the testicles. I threaten him with my two pink dildos, Fat Man and Little Boy. Sometimes I’m disturbed by the ease with which I perform acts of such egregious violence. He calls what we do making love.

Dick Bove took a break from whatever it is he’s doing today to profess, once again, his never-ending love for Ken Lewis and BofA. In response to the charges Cuomo and the SEC filed last week against the bank and its ex-leaders, Bove had just one thing to say: “The actions of Andrew Cuomo and the SEC cost billions and untold suffering.”

For the past few years, bonuses at RBS have been what you call not so great (for good reason of course, which is that whatever money the firm had needed to be put towards on-site saunas and sports bars, so just silence yourselves). RBSGC Managing Director James Glover (apparently known to colleagues though not to his face as “G-Love”), was all too aware of the shit bonus situation, particularly the potential scheme to pay employees entirely in RBS debt and if we’re being honest? He didn’t like it. It didn’t jibe with the ski house in Vermont he was building (which some haters claimed was out of his price range) or the money problems he was having in general. So Jim did what any thinking man would do and came up with a plan— help himself to a bonus.

As you’re aware, Lloyd Blankfein took a $9 million bonus on Friday in an attempt to show the world he “gets” it. So much does Lloyd get it that prior to accepting an obscenely low package for a man of his stature, he actually consulted Kenneth Feinberg “numerous” times on the matter, even though he didn’t have to. According to Feinberg, the conversations were “not only about the size of [Blankfein’s] package” but also about how, Goldman, as an institution should behave and lead by example. “He was concerned and wanted to abide by what Treasury was doing and he has succeeded.” For his part, Feinberg still seems a bit skeptical of LB. “Whether or not those prescriptions will remain in place remains to be seen.”

This came in handy, as he was thinking of calling out anyway due to the Super Bowl hangover.