Beating the gloom - We’ve done it before, we’ll do it again

THE weather and the economy seem to be working hand-in-glove in a kind of partnership of despair.

Falling share values and rising unemployment are not what we are used to and the sun is not, as it should in these high-summer days of late July, lifting the country’s spirits by shining in a clear sky from dawn to dusk.

Each and every day, each and every news programme, seems to bring another piece of bad, dispiriting news even if it is only another way of telling the story that has dominated our headlines and psyche for weeks.