Given the volatile week that was in it, with share prices going through the roof and the pound plunging the depths, economic analysts were as happy as pigs around the trough. Talk is cheap and supply certainly exceeded demand, a succession of vapid economic crystal ball gazers hogging television screens and newspaper columns with interminably tedious commentary. High time to dilute the stodge with some wry witticisms, some hopefully new, some undoubtedly old, at the expense of graduates from the "on the one hand, on the other hand" school of ambiguity.

How, for example, do you distinguish an economist from a befuddled old man with memory lapses? The economist is the one with the calculator. Or why, one wonders, do sharks never attack a swimming economist? It's a matter of professional courtesy. I particularly like the definition of an underutilised asset: a busload of economic analysts going over a precipice with three seats unoccupied. Heard the story about the economists who overheard a shouted dispute between two neighbours? The consensus was that agreement was impossible since the argument was from different premises. Here's one for the charisma challenged slabfaced suits at the Central Bank. A central banker orders a pizza. Asked if he would like it cut into six or eight slices the banker says: "Make it eight, I'm feeling hungry today." And finally, and mercifully, the inevitable light bulb joke which, given the current glowing economy, has apposite resonances. How many Irish central bankers does it take to change a light bulb? Why none. Left alone it getting brighter, it's definitely getting brighter. Enough.