Interest rate cuts have an effect in stimulating an economy by directly or indirectly making someone, somewhere, spend more than they otherwise would. That extra spending increases demand and ensures that we all carry on with work to do, without us having to slash our prices or our wrists.

It doesn't annoy me but I think of myself as a presenter who is gay, rather than a gay presenter. It's a subtle distinction, but that's how I view it.

We Brits print banknotes out in Debden in Essex, and have contracted it out to the private sector. Here in the U.S. it is a government operation right in the heart of Washington next door to the Holocaust Museum.

We escaped the last big bursting of a bubble - the dotcom bubble - with a relatively light U.S. recession. On that occasion, the world economy found its way back on track fairly quickly.

It is no wonder that bank capital is regulated. When borrowing and lending is profitable, it is tempting for banks to scale up their operations and to borrow and lend too much in relation to their capital, in effect reducing the effectiveness of the potential capital cushion.

But sometimes it's good to dare yourself to do the unthinkable. And rather than stand in front of an audience with no clothes on, I decided to have a go at stand-up comedy.

Most people hugely underestimate the amount of 'empty space' we have in our country. Fly over the U.K., and you see that human settlement does not fill up the U.K. at all. It accounts for something of the order of 15 per cent of the landmass.