Just for a few minutes, imagine you have not read any newspapers, watched TV or listened to the radio news for the last few months. Now. This last week  I have been to 4 of the 5 small market towns I frequent regularly around here. The food shops were busy and some were packed. Other shops varied, but that s normal. The cafes were humming with people having coffees and teas and hot chocolates and cakes. We went to our local pub which is so good now. It was packed with people eating and drinking. This morning a brochure came through the door from a local estate agent saying they are having a very busy spring.

I can never get cash out of the hole in the wall without waiting in a queue. My hairdresser has no appointments for 2 weeks.... I know there is hidden poverty but had I not read about it in the papers for weeks on end I wouldn`t have had a clue the economy was supposed to be in a parlous state. Even the local supermarket had boil in the bag rice at 3 for 2 and I thought there was a world shortage/price hike.

It costs £56 to fill my old and modest small car now, whereas it was £43 a year ago but there was a queue at the petrol station this morning.

Would you know about an economic crisis/downturn if you hadn`t read it in the papers ?

It was very different the last time round. The only reason we could buy this house was because it was a bank repossession and the bank was willing to take a silly offer after a year of no offers at all. I went to buy furniture for it in both Liberty`s and a costly shop in the King`s Road. They snapped my hand off at both, the floors were deserted, I actually made an offer for a Knole sofa I could never in a million years have afforded otherwise, and they accepted. 

My publisher gave a dinner for my new book, at a restaurant in Soho. It was totally deserted. Not just the restaurant. Soho. The country was in the grip of fear, you could smell it. I just do not get that sense now. I know I live in a relatively affluent part of England but there are plenty of retired people and rural working people round abouts.. the Cotswolds are not only full of Elizabeth Hurley.

It`s the same with that Climate Change/Global Warming rubbish (and yes, it is mostly rubbish, read Nigel Lawson` timely and scrupulously argued new book on the subject.) If you did not have newspapers/TV/radio and other news media, how much would you know about it from your own experience. (Changes in day to day weather do not count. We have had extremes of weather for centuries.)

Yes, I thought so.

Meanwhile, back to the subject of e-readers. All major publishers are now rushing over the cliff towards the e-readers below. Everything is going to be available as a download onto an e-reader. But what is going to happen when the actual paying public of book readers says 'thanks, but no thanks.' ? 

There`s a great Tuesday market near here and a bloke with a Brummie accent and a turban shouts his wares. I can see him now, trying to flog off e-readers for a quid.  Apparently they have already over-produced the i-Phone, which has dropped in price like a stone and still nobody much wants them. The SP says e-readers will have a place for the reading of learned journals and some new academic books and he is  probably right. A lot of learned journals are already only available as downloads onto the computer now. But I am convinced the Ordinary Reader will continue to buy books. The world will not lose all its bookshops, replaced by little booths like those Photo-Me Tardis jobs, into which you go to download twenty new books to your e-reader. It really won`t.

Read my lips.