As share prices plummet, banks expire around us like mayflies and even the usually sober Daily Telegraph uses the word "mayhem" in its front page headline, perhaps it's time to consider who is actually coping with the current fiscal woes:
Gordon Brown: "Hostilities are over" amid the crisis, says one critical Labour MP, George Howarth, who was calling for a Labour leadership contest just a few weeks ago. Meanwhile in the Independent, we learn that Alastair Campbell is playing an ever bigger PR role once again. Following Peter Mandelson's shock return, "we are putting the band back together", beams one Labour insider (though as reunions go, it's surely more Buck's Fizz than Led Zeppelin). Elsewhere in the same paper, columnist Simon Carr notes: "Shares in the PM are the only ones in Britain that are going up."
Japan: This is, of course, relative – Tokyo's Nikkei share index plunged 4.5% yesterday and it fell further today. But some experts believe the country, which has weathered its own economic stasis in recent years, could now be better placed for a global slowdown. Someone obviously believes this – the yen rose 6% against the euro yesterday.
Gung ho investors: While around the world cash is being removed from stock markets to be stuffed under mattresses, they're made of sterner stuff over at the markets bible Investors Chronicle. One column outlines the reasons why opportunists believe now is the time to start thinking about how to snap up new portfolios while they're going cheap.
Undertakers: A Lloyds TSB report, covered yesterday, predicted severe difficulties for businesses in more or less every sector "with the possible exception of funeral directors". Well, I suppose it is the one thing you can't put off till the recession is over.
Lapdancing clubs: A colleague researched this – on the phone, of course – for an article which, in the end, never came off. But he did speak to Chris Knight, manager of vast London lapdancing club For Your Eyes Only, who said takings were lower "but not as much as you might think". He added: "Whatever the state of the economy men will always want to see women get naked".
Based on an extract from the Wrap, guardian.co.uk's digest of the day's news
