If we cant shoot the messenger lets lampoon him him instead....

Experts like, the fear-monger-in-chief and fan of ridiculously long mid-word ...............................pauses, Robert Peston predict that 2009 ain't gonna be a barrel of laughs. He didn't use those actual words but that was definitely the gist of his proclamation atop the Peston High Horse. Being right all the time makes for a lonely journey, it's a constant yoke I labour under. Ha! But still no need Mr Peston, no need. I say shoot the messenger. Okay maybe not shoot but definitely we should mercilessly lampoon him.

He's probably right. In fact he is right.

eh not just yet if you don't mind....

No one is going to escape the chill wind of recession with it's associated bankruptcy and deflation and general grimness. Our main streets will become graveyards with empty shop fronts as tombs to the excesses of the previous decade. How's that for fear mongering? Eh? Like those rotten apples do ya?

I say no one will escape the oncoming icy wind of despair that's going to blow our collective metaphorical balls off but there are a few who are better placed to withstand the shit storm that will be 2009. The rich will take a knock or two, maybe have to cut the holidays down to four or five a year (how uncouth), but they will survive. As will the super rich and their better heeled cousins, the awesomely rich - Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Bono, Twenty Major etc.

Nostradamus in a pin striped suit will be fine too. In fact just like bankruptcy lawyers and accountants Mr Peston will probably come out of it all smell of roses, money roses at that. He'll gallop from one TV/radio studio to the next like the fifth rider of the apocalypse delivering his dire warnings about fiscal stability and impending doom picking up cheques as he goes. Which is nice. For him that is, it sucks for the rest of us. And over the next year it wont just be economic predictions either. As his star grows so will his remit - football predictions, weather forecasting, medical diagnosis oh yes The Pesto will do it all.

As the economy dives Peston's power and influence will grow stronger to the point where he becomes Messianic. As we will undoubtably all be out of work we, as The Pesto predicted, and have nothing to do we will follow him and ensure his prophecies come to pass.

"is a measure of income inequality that condenses the distribution of income into a number between zero and one, where the zero corresponds to a world in which all households have identical income, and one would be a place where all the income goes to a single person", will become our ridiculously long and baffling mantra as we traverse the country bringing fear and anxiety where once there was joy and happiness.

Oh yes 2009, and Robert Peston, promises us some dark times.

Restaurants and as a result restaurant waiters wont escape the downturn, in fact we will be amongst the first to suffer. Crikey. Not essential apparently. The style bars will be the first to founder on the hard rocks of economic recession. So not all bad then. But the restaurants will follow.

The restaurants demise will be slow at first as owners battle the pointless fight for the punters cash against the rising cost of stuff and shit. A fight we cant win no matter how many 2 for 1, money off coupons, special offers and free wine we shovel at the them. By Easter most restaurants will have been burnt to the ground by unemployed chefs and waiters. The few that survive will be nothing more than glorified soup kitchens serving gruel and hot stock.

Just as the country looks doomed a hero will arise from the ashes of one of these restaurants with a new vision and a pledge to defeat the Pestonians, as the followers of Robert Peston will be known. It will be a man. An ordinary man. A waiter man.

Not me obviously. I will be dead by the summer having starved to death due to the complete collapse of the hospitality industry. But a simple waiter man spurred on by a need for tax free cash will start an underground movement that will spread joy and positivity by reminding people what it was like in the olden days, in the long before time, in the time before Pestonian negativity took over the world. That's right 2006 will be our inspiration and Beep by the Pussy Cat Dolls will be our anthem. Or something better it still has to be decided. This growing movement for happiness and positivity will lift the previously cowed masses who will face down the Pestonians and his army of gloom.

It could all happen people, it really could, if we let it that is.

2009 ain't gonna be pretty but lets not let the merchants of doom and the Pestonians of this world condemn it before the sun has risen on the first day.

Have a great 2009 and remember a waiter is for life not just for the good times.