MONDAY

Gordon Brown's dour image is contrasted by a confident optimism as he and the Chancellor announce the £37bn part nationalisation of Britain's three largest banks, but the most startling contrast for TV viewers remains Alastair Darling's snow-white hair and sooty-black eyebrows ...

Poignant contrasts between the boom and now during one of the busiest hearings for the year for repossession of homes at the High Court. Among almost 60 properties listed, one homeowner, in arrears of over €20,000 since February 2007, told the judge that "as bad as the damage now to my name is, in terms of credit, I'd be destroyed completely for life."

TUESDAY

Christmas is cancelled for senior citizens and workers with a budget as grim as predicted. Minister Brian Lenihan calls it a "call to patriotic action", which means automatic entitlement to a medical card for the over 70s is abolished, while the €2bn tax hike targets the pockets of PAYE workers in a 1% super levy. Forget low and middle income. We're all Lidl income now.

Credit crunch for the Pitts? Mother-of-six Angelina Jolie, planning the seventh, and struggling on a combined income of $40m, tells 'Hello!' she will return to work, in February, adding that dad Brad (below) is "wonderfully supportive". "It'll have been over a year since I last worked and there was a big discussion in our house of 'Should I go back to work?'"

WEDNESDAY

Shares fall in Wall Street, London, Europe and Asia. A report from Davy Stockbroker says hopes of a recovery in the Irish economy in 2010 are unlikely. Market volatility is deemed a 'Black Swan' – defined as a sudden unforeseen event that changes previously held certainties.

No surprises as whip-smart businesswoman Madonna (right) flexes those impressive biceps and announces she and her 'mockney' film director husband Guy Ritchie are to divorce. Contributing factors may be the material girl spending too much time at the gym, while there's probably only so much macrobiotic hotpot a Guy can take. She's currently on her Sticky and Sweet global tour, while Ritchie could make a mint from this wife's €400m fortune.

All Joe Wurzelbacher (above), aka Joe the Plumber, wants is "a house, a dog, a couple of rifles, and a bass boat." His name is the highlight of the McCain-Obama debate, referenced 25 times as typical of citizens predicted to suffer under the Democratic candidate's tax plans. It later emerges that he doesn't have a plumber's licence and owes back taxes. It's unclear if this ordinary Joe is one and the same as Sarah Palin's Joe Six-Pack.

THURSDAY

A very 'Mary' Christmas is predicted for over 70s now facing means testing from November. Clarification by health minister Mary Harney on income threshold for a medical card does little to alleviate apprehension among the original 140,000 citizens who qualified before the budget. Only 15,000 of those will retain the card by the New Year. Veteran actor Anna Manahan spoke for many: "Where would €400 get me with the medication I have to keep me alive? I'd die if I didn't have it."

AIB, on the other hand, is adopting 'a very supportive approach' to builders, developers and property investors and 'rolling up' interest due on loans. The bank is one of the six financial institutions covered by the government's €485bn guarantee. While construction activity remains silent, there is the sound of 'drilling down' in the audit ordered by the Financial Regulator to determine the extent to which banks are delaying collection of interest.

Yes? No? Maybe... After agreeing with President Sarkozy on availing of legal service from the EU's Council of Ministers to discern possible 'opt-outs', Taoiseach Brian Cowen is asked if a second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty is the only viable option. "We'll discuss it in December when it will be far clearer what the options might be."

The only option for Sky News presenter Kay Burley (above) is to call the police over fears she is being stalked by Barry George, the man she interviewed after his acquittal for the murder of Jill Dando. Following Burley's collapse at the end of her broadcast on Wednesday come reports of her anxiety about George, who had been downloading pictures of her and had slept with them.

friDAY

The aptly-named ICTU secretary David Begg (left) meets the Taoiseach, stressing that the budget puts the trade union in a difficult, if not impossible, position. The 1% income levy effectively wipes out the 0.5% for the low paid under the National Wage Agreement and which union members will be called to vote on. On the medical card threshold, Begg says "there is a hell of a difference between people being very rich and those having €240 a week." The difference being that some are called on, in Lenihan's allocation of the budgetary burden, to be more patriotic than others.