The news is so full of cliff-hangers and unresolved twists-in-plots right now that I can’t concentrate on the here-and-now for wishing I could fast-forward to see what happens next.

Will the unfolding economic situation, for example, the sub-prime mortgage crisis or whatever you choose to call it, trigger a global recession or even a replay of the Great Depression? How pressing a concern this is depends on your perspective, I guess.

Citizens of Zimbabwe, on the one hand, are surely past caring, as Mugabe and his Zanu-PF have already rendered their situation about as depressing as it gets, with inflation at over 100,000 percent and unemployment of around 80 percent.