A ”Citizen Journalist” on CNN website mistakenly claims boss Steve Jobs has a heart attack and sends Apple’s shares crashing… With another ill-informed BBC business Blog by dyed-hair scribbler Robert Peston accused of terrifying traders and wiping £17bn off the share price of UK banks… American lawyer Michael Kelly “forgot” to submit his client’s bond release request leaving the accused in a cell for two years, patiently assuming his lawyer was working on his behalf… And Environmental groups accused Starbucks of wasting water by leaving taps on all day to clean spoons and utensils in each store’s dipper well…

Liverpool estate agent starts nailing up boards reading “Rent Dogder lives here” on properties where the tenants have fallen behind on their payments… Lend him a fiver: steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal estimated to have lost $21.4bn in the fluctuating markets this week… Five-years of legal wrangles and appeals conclude with Canadian Border guard being reimbursed the $9 he had claimed on expenses for a sandwich bought while working overtime… Tesco was “under siege” yesterday from cost conscious shoppers when it priced cases of 18 bottles of Carlsberg for £5, while Dunhill gasper maker British American Tobacco is the only company this week reporting healthy profits – if that’s the right word!

Another day, and another spate of stories from the airlines: first is news that Canadian low cost long hauler Zoom has suspended all flights as its cash dries up in the face of horrible fuel costs. The firm employs 260 people here in the UK. The thousands of people due to fly with Zoom in the coming weeks have been told to rebook with other carriers. Cheers. So that’s Zoom, Oasis, Eos, Maxjet and Silverjet all gone in the last few months. Will a name we recognise be next? Not if TUI Travel, Lufthansa and Thomas Cook have anything to do with it. They are looking at lumping together TUI Fly Germany, Condor (owned by Thomas Cook) and Lufthansa’s Germanwings in a deal aimed at securing cost savings. There’s no certainty the deal will go ahead and it will be funny peculiar to catch arch rivals TUI and Thomas Cook in bed together, but the group hug response to the troubles in the industry may well be the only way to survive. A bit like facing the sharks on board the Indianapolis…”I’ll catch it for 30, but I’ll eat it for 15.”

Earlier this year Toyota was about three cars away from overtaking GM to be the world’s biggest car maker, and given their concerted efforts to make the ugly but ethical Prius the roller of choice, we were quite happy with that. Black hats on then as the firm has announced it is cutting production at its British car factory in Derbyshire. With an output of 277,000 cars last year, it was Britain’s second-biggest car producer after the Nissan plant in Sunderland. But the firm is reducing the number of daily shifts on the plant’s Auris production line from two to one, cutting production by 15,000 vehicles, over the next five months, when Toyota will review the market and hopefully get things back on track. None of the 3,800 permanent staff will go. They’re a smart bunch, Toyotans, and the industry will no doubt take note of their rightly cautious strategy.

Forget tea leaves, if you want to know the future, look at your kebab…A survey of 161 City financial services firms found 63% expect their industry to suffer further pain. Of course everyone ignores the 37% in a positive mood. Honestly: in the USA they keep positive – here the recession is becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. So, while the press report 45% of hiring managers think recruitment activity will fall, let me point out the 55% majority don’t agree. In fact 16% predict an increase in recruitment. If you really want to know what the future holds, keep your eye on Germany’s doner kebab industry. Economist Dieter Schubert says: “In the past 20 years, downturns in the global economy have always been predicted by prices rises in doner kebabs in Germany.” True enough, the doner prices are up and sales are down. If you can’t stand the heat…