So that nice Mr Darling has listened to, well everyone, really, and decided to postpone the planned 2p a litre hike in fuel duty.

So the bloodbath continues. Last Saturday's Guardian business pages featured a very interesting little series of graphs, showing just how far major shares had fallen in the past few months. They included some of our old favourites: Persimmon, Barratt, Kier, Taylor Wimpey and, of course, Wolseley. For all of these companies have seen upwards of…

It's all rather confusing. Driving to work at the beginning of this week I heard a report from the National Housing Federation which predicts house prices will rise by 25% over the next five years.

So Treasury officials are looking into the idea of scrapping stamp duty as one of the ways they could kick-start the housing market.

It's not a good time to be trying to sell anything even slightly on the heavyside. Yesterday's State of Trade Survey from the Construction Products Association shows that the heavyside is suffering the effects of the credit crunch-triggered housing collapse more than most. Only to be expected, of course, since it's the heavy materials, the…

The fact that a lady has been taken to court by her neighbours for flushing the loo too often at night sounds like a real silly season story. But if you dig a little deeper there are issues here which go behind that of dodgy neighbourhood relationships.

Is it my imagination or, economic downturn or not, are people starting to feel a bit more positive about things? Yes, the high street retailers are still haemorrhaging sales, yes there are stories of whole tribes of brickies turning up on building sites looking for work and yes, energy prices have gone up yet again.

Golly. I thought I was full of doom and gloom about the state of the economy, but then I'm a journalist and we're supposed to have a dark side.

Sex and Power. It sounds like one of those blockbusting novels on sale at WH Smith art Gatwick Airpoirt. It is, in fact, the title of the Equality and Human Right's Commission's annual investigation into women in top positions of power and influence across the public and private sectors.

It seems our news page is full of fraud at the moment - stories about employees committing fraud towards their employers, that is. Maybe it's the time of year, maybe it's the credit crunch hitting home.