YOU know things are really bad when the quacks start appearing. Australian hypnotist Rick Collingwood arrives in Britain this week with the cure for financial woes.

He said: “It might seem that we are in a situation of irreversible economic decline, but my theory is that it’s all in people’s minds.” Er, if only.

Collingwood is happy to have meetings with any financial groups “suffering from negative thinking”, free of charge. Slightly lower down the crazy spectrum is the recent surge in City workers turning to meditation.

One specialist, The Third Factor in London’s Barbican, has had inquiries from firms including Google and Price Waterhouse Coopers about lunch-time meditation workshops. Sadly, they would not disclose which chief executives had opted for one-on-one sessions.

One heel of a kitchen

JUST when you thought the days of bankers spending extraordinary amounts of money on mundane things were over, one goes and sticks a giant stiletto on his food bar.

Let me explain. It has emerged, like a beacon in the dark, that the chief executive of an investment bank has paid £500,000 for his new kitchen - which has a large stiletto spike incorporated into the food bar.

The feature was meant as a nod towards his wife’s taste in shoes. Not a very subtle nod, I think you might agree.

The designer behind this vision of domestic bliss is British kitchen stylist Johnny Grey.

He uses “neuroscience” to create a kitchen tailored to clients’ personalities and spends up to 80 hours with them in order to understand what makes them tick – often going round for dinner and staying the night at their home.

Kitchens are not alone in defying the downturn. It seems that our quest for physical perfection does not recognise the R-word either.

Last month, demand for nonsurgical treatments, such as Botox, at the Harley Medical Group increased by 26%.

There has also been a surge in business at the group’s City clinics as bankers strive to look calm in the financial crisis.

Mel Braham, chairman of the Harvey Medical Group, said he had started advertising in rugby grounds because he wanted to grow the male market.

And, you know, if one banker spent 80 hours designing his kitchen, Braham might just be on to something . . .

- DATING websites such as Quickflirt.com and Girlsdateforfree never sat easily alongside more morally upright assets in the Daily Mail portfolio. So it is little surprise they are being married off to an east European bride – the sort of pairing an internet lonely heart dreams of. After paying £23m for websites owner Allegran a mere two years ago, the Mail is handing them over for a fraction of the price after a spell of poor trading. They will be combined with dotcom entrepreneur Bill Dobbie’s Easydate which owns Benaughty.com and has a big operation in Ukraine. A perfect match.

- AS if the Barclays extraordinary meeting next week was not going to be riotous enough, it now looks as though some unexpected guests may pop in. Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Thani – who is miffed with the bank over his claims it failed to inform him when £40m was allegedly moved out of his accounts by a wayward butler – is planning to ambush the event. The Qatari sheikh’s lawyers were this weekend planning their attack as Barclays has offered no settlement. The sheikh, I’m told, is losing his patience.

Talking money pays off

KER-CHING. Continuing on the theme of those who are defying the credit crunch, the BBC’s raven-haired business editor, Robert Peston, has firmly arrived as a celebrity speaker. According to the firm JLA – which purports on its website to be the UK’s biggest specialist agency for keynote speakers – Moneybags Peston can demand up to £10,000 a night on the after-dinner circuit.

Don’t be so shocked. His real-life voice, compared with his special Beeb voice, is actually quite normal and his hair is awfully shiny.

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