Trollied Tuesday: When All Else Fails, Turn to Drink

Shoichi Nakagawa

Mr Nakagawa, who was sticking today with his excuse that a combination of jetlag and cough mixture got the better of him, said that he would stay on in the Cabinet until parliament gave the green light to a supplementary budget aimed at steering Japan out of the sharpest recessionary plunge in its history.

A number of politicians have come forward today with annecdotal evidence of Mr Nakagawa's odd behaviour – he has, for example, been spotted bumping into the doorframes along the corridors of power. (Times report)

That seems about as good a response as any in the face of the current financial crisis. Let's be honest, things have become so awful that it scarcely matters whether or not the world's economy is in the hands of financial geniuses, hapless fools or deluded megalomaniacs: a surfeit of the latter has left a mess of such stinking, colossal proportions that there's nothing anyone can do. Except pour another drink, obviously.