Students of social and economic history will see ominous signs reminiscent of 1929 currently in America. After the boom 1920s, seemingly overnight it all fell apart leading on to the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The “Stuff” newspaper chain, bought for a dollar by a woman under whose management has seen a massive collapse in readership, must be the most incompetently run organisation outside of some government departments in our history.

I’ve been in Scotland in recent weeks looking at some buildings for sale and was an unintended bemused TV spectator of the coronation, a farcical Gilbert and Sullivan event overlaid with some Verdi flippery.

The Times ran a fascinating article from a medical expert after Barry Humphries shock death, re hip fractures following falls by elderly folk. To the layman a hip fracture sounds like a nuisance rather than a death sentence, but apparently not so.

A British animal protection outfit PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has begun an electronic billboard campaign showing a smiling butcher holding up a dead cat then the image changes to show the butcher holding up a fish. The message over this asserts that eating a fish is no different in principle than eating a cat. A PETA representative was quoted saying “fish are animals with feelings who can experience pain and have a will to live.