Did you know that today is officially (well, at least according to the papers) Mega Monday?
Yes, on December 8 it is your chance – no, your duty – to help the UK spend its way out of a recession with a pre-Christmas online shopping binge.
Today is, apparently, the biggest day of a Christmas online retail season in which more than £13bn will be splurged on gifts, according to the internet trade body IMRG. Those of a cynical mindset might suspect IMRG's hand in the Mega Monday branding.
The mouse-clicking frenzy is supposedly due to peak at lunchtime as workers log on to spend an estimated £28m in an hour.
The Independent, meanwhile, ventured on to the high streets to report that pre-Christmas discounts of up to 75% have brought out the crowds. On a packed Oxford Street in London, the paper says in a peculiar phrase that the hordes were displaying a "Blitz spirit" – by which it means blithely hammering their credit cards in much the same manner as got us into this economic mess in the first place, as opposed to pulling together amid a genuine risk to their lives and families.
So there you have it. Barack Obama is doing his bit, dismissing the soaring US budget deficit with a cheery "Oh, never mind" to press ahead with what the FT calls the "biggest infrastructure investment in the US for half a century". Now it's your turn: expensive gifts all round. The country depends on you.
What to buy? The papers can help here, too. A couple of sectors are apparently doing well as we seek to escape from grim economic reality.
The video game industry is, the FT says, enjoying a boom, with sales of Microsoft's Xbox 360 console up 124% year on year around Europe.
Meanwhile, according to the Telegraph a company that makes old-fashioned parlour games such as Pit, Laripino and Panic Post (me neither) is struggling to keep up with demand. But what's this? Most of these games "sell for less than £6", the paper says. Forget it – that won't save the economy.
Based on an extract from the Wrap, theguardian.com's digest of the day's news
