Evidence that footballers don’t make good comedians came during the European Championship of 1996. England players Alan Shearer, Gareth Southgate and others decided to incorporate song titles into their interviews. The longer England remained in the tournament the braver and more outlandish the players became. Gareth Southgate talked of no “careless whispers”, Alan Shearer of no “dancing on the ceiling”. Clearly you had to be in on the joke.
Like footballers, the City’s gurus aren’t known for comedy. But they too seem to be sharing an in-joke. Hilariously this resolves around the shape of the recession. Alistair Darling [best not described as a guru] kicked things off with his predictions of a ‘V’ shaped recession. Sir Martin Sorrell decided the recession would be ‘L’ shaped. And someone else mention ‘W’. Nothing funny about an L, V or W.
Things, however, have just started to get a little silly. The recovery will look like “an inverted square root sign”, Martin Soros told Reuters. Proof that Sorrell, Soros and friends are making fun at our expense will arrive next week when Warren Buffett declares the recession to be ‘S’ shaped or, if he’s feeling really wild, like a squiggly snake.
