Speker’s Corner Barry Speker
Resilience in the Recession


or Dealing with the Depression?




Wall Streer

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by Barry Speker OBE
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With the downturn
H
ow are we coping with past stability? raise one’s mood.
economic disaster? The This may be safer than turning Cashing in on this are comedians
wealth of households in to alcohol – and taking advantage Peter Kay and Paul O’Grady,
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in the economy, are
Britain fell by 70% last year. This was of Wetherspoons reduction to 99p bringing out not a first but a second &






 
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the biggest drop for 40 years. House a pint. But will this become a thing autobiography. Both of them have

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prices slumped and the Stock Market of the past, with Professor Sir Liam already topped the bestsellers list
people going back
plunged. Donaldson, the Chief Medical Adviser, – Peter Kay in 2006 and Paul O’Grady in
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The fall of more than a sixth in suggesting that something should 2008. Peter Kay sold 750,000 hardbacks
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household wealth – measured by the be done about binge drinking and and Paul O’Grady 600,000, each a
to basics?
value of housing and investments that there should be a minimum price bestseller. Of course they are not the
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have in pensions, ISA’s and other of 50p for each unit of alcohol. What first to have such interesting lives that
assets – is the biggest in cash terms will that do to the price of a bottle they can bring out repeated memoirs.
on record. The drop in wealth last year Laphroig? Indeed Katie Price (aka Jordan)












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is equivalent to £20,000.00 for each One solution is to sit down with managed three memoirs before the %
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individual in Britain and £45,000.00 for a good book – or even a bad one. age of 30. David Niven published three

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each household. Although publishing is facing similar memoirs and Dirk Bogarde five.
It is a question of bad news difficulties to other businesses, it So in addition to comfort eating,
following bad news. Fortunately there seems that escapist romantic fiction is another bottle of Malt Whisky, comic
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seems to be considerable resilience booming. Mills and Boon sell 3 books a autobiographies and feel-good /.





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in the UK. Not even the Bankers are second. Cheryl Cole of Girls Aloud has movies like Mamma Mia and Slumdog
jumping out of the top floor of their signed a £5m deal to write romantic Millionaire, we could also try to work
palatial office blocks. novels. Presumably these are not out how these economic disasters
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Are our lifestyles being altered? Is based upon her idyllic life with Ashley have fallen upon us. Editions of Karl
everyone spending their way out of Cole, famously out on a binge whilst Marx’s Das Kapital are selling well, as
the recession or are we all clipping our Cheryl was climbing Mount Kilimanjaro are books by John Maynard Keynes
wings? in aid of Comic Relief. and J K Galbraith’s 1954 Tome on the
It has been suggested that because One recommended book for the collapse of Wall Street The Great Crash
of the uncertain future, and to recession is Gill Holcombe’s best 1929 which should be required reading
have some comfort, consumers are selling How to Feed your Whole Family for all of our Politicians.
returning to the household brands a Healthy Balanced Diet with Very Little All of the dramatic solutions put
they grew up with. Birds Eye Fish Money and hardly any time, even if you forward to turn things around, seem
It is a question
Fingers, Bisto Gravy, Bird’s Custard and have a tiny kitchen, only 3 saucepans to be based on hope such as giving
of bad news
Heinz Tomato Soup have massively (one with an ill-fitting lid) and no fancy billions of pounds to the Banks in
increased sales. There is a massive gadgets – unless you count the garlic the hope that they will lend this to
following bad
growth in the purchase of tea and no crusher. [The title may be longer than business. Presumably our PM is in
doubt a return to the classic British the book!). the middle of reading Dickens Great
news. Fortunately
remedy for all ills – “Let’s put High on the Sunday Times Expectations although his favourite
the kettle on and have a bestsellers list is When Will There Be record seems to be Edith Piaf’s No
there seems to
nice cup of tea.” Good News? by Kate Atkinson, whilst Regrets. I may send him a copy of Ian
Sales of Monopoly, Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope McEwan’s Atonement. After all, Bernie
be considerable
Scrabble and Cluedo might be worth a read. Madoff has said he is “really” sorry; so
are greatly increased. This is not a good time to be he may only be sentenced to 125 years
resilience in the UK.
Is everyone getting reading the depressing tales of imprisonment instead of 150. L


comfort from those who have risen from poor
nostalgic and unprivileged backgrounds. !






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memories of Angela’s Ashes is unlikely to
barryspeker@samuelphillips.co.uk
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