In every newscast come reports of another fall in property values, another setback for the markets or another drop in share price of construction companies.

It's for economists to analyse. But what intrigues me is how the experts have persistently dragged their feet in acknowledging the likely destination of the plummeting graphs.

When house prices were rocketing unsustainably, analysts said they might slow a bit. When they slowed sharply, analysts said they might even flatten. When they began to dip, analysts' predictions were for a “gentle correction” in the market. Now they're tumbling, analysts say it could reach as much as 10 or 15 per cent.

Obviously it's going to be at least 30 per cent, reversing similar stupid increases, unrelated to any real increase in national output.

Now the analysts who didn't even predict an economic slowdown say it will be a slowdown but not recession. Hm. I suspect that economic forecasting owes more to a mirror held up to yesterday than a crystal ball held up for tomorrow.

Lap of dishonour

A friend (heterosexual, so far as anyone really is) was with some other male friends at a lap-dancing club the other day and got inveigled into watching a “private” dance.

Ever since my parliamentary days when Robert Kilroy-Silk and I campaigned (successfully) to abolish imprisonment for prostitutes, I've inclined to the view that women in the sex business are the victims, and men the aggressors. I'd hold to that; but my friend's testimony does make me think, because he isn't any kind of a male pig.

He said he felt like the victim in this exchange. The female professionals in the club did not appear downtrodden at all. They traded shrewdly on male peer-group pressures to net their quarries. He was led miserably away for three very expensive minutes in a dingy room. The experience there (purely visual) degraded him, he felt, more than it did the woman. She had cheerfully and profitably humiliated him.

You may say he didn't have to be there in the first place. But nor did she. And as my friend is a BBC employee, the dancer will have been earning more than he does.

Another country

A cautionary tale for all journalists. Writing in The Spectator about a schoolteacher in Africa to whom, aged 8, I owed a lot, I made the point that she was a “good” teacher for bright achievers, but sometimes left the weaker schoolchildren behind, turning them into failures. I cited a Portuguese kid who could neither speak nor write much English and, being no brainbox, floundered. I was foolish enough to name him, reflecting that (a) both his Christian name and surname were two of the commonest Portuguese names - there must be half a million of them - and (b) that he'd never see it anyway.

This time I'm going to change his name to Pedro Gonzales. For here is a letter from his friend in Portugal to the magazine:

“Sir: A word on behalf of Pedro Gonzales... Pedro (who, like me, is Portuguese) was quite upset with [Parris's] article. He has asked me to inform your readership that he too has done very well. He is happily married and in possession of the love of his children. He has been able to support them in an honest way.

“As he approaches retirement he looks forward to a great many things he wants to do. He is, as much as any man can be in this hard world, content with his lot. He has no recollection of Mrs McLeod being so stern or of Mr Parris being so bright.”

I am well rebuked. Strangely, this letter filled me with both a sense of shame - and joy. I am so pleased they published it.

No, minister

From The Times last week, headlined “Ceviche: the new sushi”:

“Put down the maki rolls and sashimi, the hot new trend in raw fish is spicy South American ceviche - marinated prawns on a bed of lettuce...” etc. An excellent piece about the national dish of Peru: raw white fish “cooked” in lime juice and chilli. Delicious.

But I remember when a cholera epidemic gripped Lima, where the fish are brought in from the Pacific - and the city's untreated sewage is pumped back. Unsurprisingly, fish sales had plummeted and the industry faced ruin. An alarmed fisheries minister got straight on to national television to reassure Peruvians there was no danger. To prove it he ate a huge bowl of ceviche in front of the cameras, live.

The following morning he was rushed to hospital with cholera.

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