The 3 o'clock lunch break

Here is a cracking article from the New York Times. It offers a scathing account of how Mr. Madoff fooled the SEC, who were supposed to be regulating his ponzi scheme.

I particularly liked the idea of a three o'clock lunch break.

Unseasoned investigators from the Securities and Exchange Commission were alternately intimidated and enthralled by a name-dropping, yarn-spinning Bernard L. Madoff as he dodged questions about his financial house of cards, according to a scathing new report on the agency’s repeated failure to uncover the huge investment fraud.

When one of Mr. Madoff’s employees was talking to investigators in 2005, an aide to Mr. Madoff broke up the conversation, explaining that it was time for lunch — at 3 in the afternoon.