Shocking times in Throgmorton Street

THE emergence of the big hostile bid in Europe has provided some thoroughly diverting spectacles in recent months. Think of last year's half-successful hostile bid by Banque Nationale de Paris for Société Générale and Paribas, two other French banks. Or this year's bid by Vodafone AirTouch, a British mobile-phone company, for Mannesmann, a German rival, the first successful hostile bid by a foreigner for a German company. But an £800m ($1.2 billion) hostile bid by OM, a 15-year-old Swedish technology and exchange company, for the 200-year old London Stock Exchange (LSE) promises even more excitement: a hostile bid not just for a company but for an entire market. Even the City's greybeards had trouble recalling the last time the Scandinavians pulled such a stunt: 842, perhaps, when Viking long-ships sailed up the Thames.