MONDAY

The Cern doomsday merchants from the previous week get it right. As the financial world implodes, images from a tumbling Wall Street are of dapper-suited Lehman Brothers staff carrying their belongings in cardboard boxes. Economic commentators babble about 'derivatives' and 'liquidity'. But what's the word for how much we'll eventually be out of pocket?

Taoiseach Brian Cowen's response to Meltdown Monday is to stress that next month's budget will be painful. Speaking in Galway, he gloomily predicts the credit crunch is "bringing about a necessary turning point in the life of the nation" before stepping into his six-figure, S series, gas-guzzler Merc.

The solution to avoiding an economic black hole? Good old-fashioned prayer. President Mary McAleese apparently goes on retreat with the Poor Clares enclosed order of nuns. At their midday prayer service, she reads from the book of Hosea. And Hosea, it is written, was the bible's biggest prophet of doom...

TUESDAY

AIG teeters, while shares in HBOS, owner of Bank of Scotland (Ireland) and Halifax, drop by 40%. As banks become even more reluctant to lend to each other, just who will have to eventually foot the bill? Not customers, surely?

Meeting union leaders and employers for national pay talks, the Taoiseach says the world economic situation has changed even since the start of the resumed process nine days ago. That proposed 5% deal, rejected in July, now seems like a small fortune.

Damien Hirst might loan us a few bob. The Brit artist has a 'mammoth clearout sale' of some of his formaldehyde preserved animal bits, fetching €140m in Sothebys. Enough dosh there to get an ailing bank out of a pickle.

Well-preserved actor Eva Longoria is suffering that irritating scrutiny well-known to the newly married Irish women – speculation as to whether or not she is pregnant. Not, miaows fellow 'Desperate Housewife' Felicity Huffman. 'She's just fat, that's all.' As poster girl for a well-known ice-cream, Longoria has exploded from size zero to size one. One too many Magnums?

wednESDAY

Never mind big banks, the new deal under the National Pay Agreement declares working folk can look forward to a bumper 6% increase over 21 months. Cautious unions might need the same time period and more to convince their members it will make a difference.

Gwyneth Paltrow convinces us the world's most famous post-feminist is a bit of an old softie... and science boffin. Her pal Madonna 'has a very, very soft side', says Paltrow on 'The Oprah Winfrey Show', adding that the 'Material Girl' helped her overcome a black hole of post-natal depression. 'She really sort of reorganised my molecules in that situation,' she tells a bemused Winfrey...

THURSDAY

A science degree isn't needed to bag one of the 20,000 one-year US working visas. The new J visa agreement, announced today, is open to anyone with a trade or secondary education. Those hoping to work in real-estate or a bank may want to look elsewhere.

Learner drivers have been looking everywhere except at the new rules of the road. Up to 1,400 offences have been committed over the two-month period since new legislation for provisional licences was introduced, mostly for driving unaccompanied and failure to display 'L' plates, incurring fines of up to €1,000.

Another black hole in the family finances...

Financial angst has pushed celebrity puff off the schedules again. Ah, remember the days when Paris Hilton's handbag being let out of jail was big news? Oh wait, here's Naomi Campbell photographed at London Fashion Week raising money for charity... and being kept well away from the mobile phones.

FRiDAY

More stats released from that Irish Times/Behaviour and Attitudes poll on Irish males. 38% of men share housework chores equally with their partner, they told the survey. They just forgot to tell their women.

Heads-rolling, bank-rolling, meltdowns, downturns and big black holes dominate the news so much the ESRI/ Permanent TSB house price index showing a drop of 0.9% in August barely registers. Former Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald's assertion that the global credit crunch is the worst financial crisis since the Wall Street Crash of 1929 hardly elicits a shrug. Because finance minister Brian Lenihan reassures customers of Irish banks their money is safe.

So that's all right then.