A bunch of about 50 bankers and brokers, all clients of Goodacre, the City consultant, were asked to complete a survey of what they expected from 2009. Some of them seem to have taken it seriously. Their guesses at a closing level for the FTSE 100 index range from 2,500, a 43 per cent fall, to 6,700, 53 per cent up, which merely proves they have no more idea than the rest of us. Only one in eight saw us in the euro by Christmas next, and three fifths didn't see zero interest rates next year. Asked which would be the next institution to hit difficulties, the largest proportion said Santander, the Spanish bank. Very closely followed, though, by the Bank of England, displaying a) an attempt at a joke, b) a worrying lack of knowledge of how the financial system operates or c), a depth of pessimism not yet seen anywhere.

Consigned to the jungle in I'm a Celebrity ...: the usual US villains, two very prominent UK politicians, Warren Buffett and Michael Bloomberg, perhaps out of envy, and for some reason, Nicola Horlick.

Amazing what people will buy on eBay. A rash of those Woolworths closing down posters - “All Items 50% Off” - have appeared, presumably nicked from dying stores and going for respectable amounts. More poignantly, someone has dug up a poster for Woolies' centenary, which reads: “In just less than a year, on the 5th November 2009, we celebrate our 100th birthday! Watch out for more details coming soon ...”

Skateboarders pool their resources in California

An unexpected spin-off of the US housing slump has been its effect on skateboarding. Skaters are travelling from as far away as Germany and Australia to participate. Their destinations are the many dried-up swimming pools at repossessed and empty Californian homes. These, rather than the straight blue-tiled pools we think of, tend to be curved and landscaped and so ideal for the hobby. Each to his own; but how much harder is it for banks to sell a repossessed home if it comes complete with its own colony of unwashed, beanie-hatted teenagers in low-slung jeans? Yo, dude!

Fine precedent

In the blue corner: Franklin Delano Roosevelt

A recent visitor to the small museum run by the New York Historical Society in Central Park reports that there is a new star draw. There are displays of furniture from the Civil War, ceramics, black history in Harlem and so on. But there is an area devoted to Franklin Delano Roosevelt and, specifically, the first 100 days of his Administration in 1933, when he started to institute the measures that helped to drag America out of the Depression. Thank a pre-Obama burst of optimism, but this is where most visitors are going.

The measures included the Emergency Banking Act and various others that would weed out those banks able to survive from those to be closed down as insolvent. Sounds familiar. He also took the first measures to repeal Prohibition, which had had the twin effects of depriving public finances of desperately needed revenue from the sale of alcohol and boosting the fortunes of the Mafia. As one visitor put it the other day:

“Way To Go, FDR!”

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