Despite the economic gloom, Barack Obama is sticking to his message of hope, forecasting better times ahead, warning against fear and despondency, and urging people not to "short-change the future" by taking decisions based on pessimism. He has even tried to cheer up Gordon Brown, by telling him at their joint press conference on Wednesday that if he wakes up every morning trying to do the right and noble thing, he may even find, to his surprise, that he isn't finished politically.
Whatever happens, Obama is right to try to keep up people's spirits, for confidence among ordinary people is just as important as confidence in the financial markets for pulling us out of this slump. And it is even more important for people's health, energy and well being, as the president appears to realise; for, as Maureen Dowd disclosed this week in her New York Times column, his department of health and human services has just published advice on its website about "getting through tough economic times".
This informs us that financial distress "can result in a whole host of negative health effects – both physical and mental", and that warning signs include "persistent sadness/crying", fatigue, irritability, anger, drink and drug abuse, apathy, and "not being able to function as well at work, school or home". And one of its tips for managing stress is exactly what Obama advises: "Try to keep things in perspective – recognise the good aspects of life and retain hope for the future."
One wonders whether the decision by Ludwig Minelli, founder of the Swiss right-to-die organisation Dignitas, to grant the BBC his first broadcast interview for five years may have something to do with the recession; for the US health agency also warns that financial distress "can cause strong feelings, such as humiliation and despair, which can precipitate suicidal thoughts or actions". One of the signs, it says, that you could be at risk of suicide is "looking for ways to kill oneself".
Minelli said in his interview that "suicide is a marvellous, marvellous possibility given to a human being ... to escape a situation which you can't alter." So whatever the outcome of the G2 summit, Obama's advocacy of hope and the belief that all situations can be altered is of great service to mankind in this time of trouble – and, incidentally, the perfect corrective to the odious views of the creepy Minelli.
The Mail on Sunday launched its sleaze week with an editorial fulminating against the greed of MPs and boasting of its own role in exposing their "institutionalised corruption". "Hardly a week goes by without another instance of creative fiddling being revealed," it said. "Private sector workers and businessmen who behaved in this way would be sacked or prosecuted." Really? The bankers whose vast greed and "creative fiddling" scuppered the world economy haven't been sacked or prosecuted – or at least, hardly any have. Nor, for that matter, have journalists ever paid much of a price for manipulating their expenses; and it hardly behoves journalists to be indignant about MPs' clumsy little claims, such as £10 for a couple of porn videos, when it is they who more or less invented expenses fraud and brought it to a peak of sophistication.
Like MPs today, journalists used to feel underpaid and entitled to supplement their earnings with inflated expense claims. I am sure they no longer do so, for Fleet Street today is an altogether cleaner, leaner place than it used to be; but there certainly was a time when journalists could fairly have been accused of "institutionalised corruption". The fiddling of expenses wasn't even frowned on; it was admired.
When I was a young journalist, there was a popular story (almost certainly apocryphal) about a Daily Express correspondent in Cairo who regularly submitted lavish claims for entertaining a "Colonel Smithers of British Intelligence". Head office in London, seeking cost-savings, conducted an investigation, which revealed that there was no such officer in Egypt, and it jubilantly cabled the correspondent to say so. But he cabled back in even greater triumph: "Thanks so much for telling me. I always suspected the man was an impostor." This was the sort of spirit that made one proud to be part of the journalistic fraternity. Of course, we were defrauding press barons such as Lord Beaverbrook or Lord Rothermere, who obviously deserved no better, whereas the MPs who do this sort of thing are stealing from the innocent taxpayer. But otherwise there's not much difference between us.
• When I was a child, some 60 or more years ago, I used to be slightly disgusted by the habit of some old people at mealtimes of taking out little pillboxes and swallowing their contents. I had no idea why they did this, but it seemed an ostentatious and unappealing way of drawing attention to themselves. But now here I am, aged 69, taking six pills a day – though not, I'm glad to say, at mealtimes but in the privacy of my bathroom. The pills may or may not do me good – they are mainly for blood pressure and cholesterol – but it makes me feel rather senile counting them out, in a doddery way, first thing in the morning and last thing at night. So it's exciting news that they may now be combined in one "polypill". I will no longer have lots of different boxes cluttering up my medicine cupboard, and with just one cheerful little swallow, I'll be all set up for the day ahead.
• This week Alexander smelt trouble for Boris Johnson in Channel 4's Dispatches programme, The Trouble With Boris, because: "It showed Simon Jenkins on the side of his detractors." He couldn't understand The Wire: "Perhaps because it was on too late." He enjoyed Richard Strauss's Salome at Milton Keynes Theatre: "A spirited production by the Welsh National Opera."
