I was checking out a funny spoof news website, called The Daily Mash, today that had lots of humorous stories related to the deteriorating economic position. This included a brilliant report stating that economists are now warning of the likelihood of Billy Bragg. Apparently, the 'dire financial climate means there is now a greater chance of the communist singer-songwriter than at any time since 1987'! Check out their website here, www.thedailymash.co.uk .

I can just imagine Billy Bragg emerging from a hibernation spent in the depths of some cave and cautiously sniffing the air for signs of a financial meltdown. I guess what this shows is that every cloud truly does have a silver lining. Sure, the economy may be worsening, inflation may be rising, and the world entering a deep dark recession but, cheer up, cos at least it's a boom time for comedy writers and political activist singers.

So if you're a funny political activist singer, then I guess you should be about to hit gold, although you'd never be able to appear happy about your good fortune cos, like, you're so angry about politicians, bankers, oil tycoons and capitalism. 

As a sketch writer, I should certainly have a good stock of ideas to work upon. Maybe a war between Iceland and Britain, only Gordon Brown thinks it's Iceland food stores that he's fighting? Or something about it being like the 80s again, with people imitating events from that era. Liverpool's footballers would all be busy growing moustaches and would start to win things. Meanwhile, there'd be another big strike but, instead of a Miners' strike, we'd have a Minors' strike because spelling standards have slipped. All these little tots would be manning (no sorry, boying) the barricades shouting that they want an end to Jamie Oliver school lunches! Or an end to Jamie Oliver himself - now there would be a cause to unite the nation and raise spirits!  

I had a very vivid dream recently, in which I was underwater and there was this very big, very ugly, fish which was hovering in the water. It looked a bit like one of those Angler fish which have a little lure which they flick to attract prey into the vicinity of their razor sharp rows of teeth. Anyway, the picture of this fish was very clear in my dream and then it suddenly did something that I wasn't expecting - it lunged at me and I saw its teeth-filled jaws clamping shut! The shock of this caused me to wake from my dream with a start. Scary but cool also!

This got me to thinking about the meaning of dreams? I didn't know what my dream meant but I could guess that it wasn't good! A quick internet search brought me to a website that professed to be able to interpret the meaning of our deepest darkest dreams. It had a section on animals in dreams, so I followed that link and scrolled down until I had found 'fish'.

The website said that 'to see fish swimming in your dream, symbolizes good luck; personal wealth and power may be on your way'. Sounds good but it didn't say anything about being eaten by one of those nicely swimming fish! 

I persevered, therefore, and did another Google search. This led me to a link that said that 'nightmares about drowning or being eaten by fish often mean being overwhelmed by something you can't control'. Given that we can't control our dreams, it may well be that I was feeling overwhelmed at the thought of being devoured by an ugly fish in my dreams?!

I'm sure there's a lot that we still have to learn about the nature of dreams. They are fascinating and elicit a huge range of emotions. One area that still provokes controversy is whether dreaming is something that is unique to humans? Having observed cats and dogs sleeping, I'm pretty certain that animals do indeed dream. Indeed, it would be pretty weird (and arrogant of us humans) to think that we humans are the only animal to display this sleep trait. 

I guess this means that fish may dream so maybe, somewhere in the depths of an ocean, there is an ugly big fish dreaming of being eaten by a gigantic human?! If so, there's a good chance that he's not analysing the meaning of it, however! 

I read an amusing thing recently. My office is part of a really beautiful campus that has a small river running through it and quite a lot of land attached. The note was the minutes of a meeting to discuss the ongoing maintenance of the flora and fauna on the grounds. 

Apparently, because we're close to an airport, there are restrictions on the number of birds that are allowed on the grounds. Now you might ask yourself 'how do you restrict the number of birds?' I mean it's not as if you can put up barbed wire fences to keep them out. It would be nice to think that we had garishly-attired scarecrows pegged out across the lawns, like some weird crucifixtion scene, but we don't. Instead, apparently, we're simply not allowed to have trees or bushes that bear fruit that would attract birds. 

Unfortunatley, though, the river has fish in it and has attracted not one but two herons. Now one would be okay but we're not allowed two! The second heron is therefore being encouraged to leave, which brings to mind an image of the groundsman stalking around shooing the heron away, or maybe he's got some spotty-faced apprentice who he makes do all the dirty work.

Also included in the groundsman's tasks was removing detritus from the river, which revealed that the river also contains leeches! I hope they're paying him danger money cos his troubles don't end there. You see we've also got a pesky escapee mink who has evaded all attempts thus far to catch him. The task of entrapping the critter is made complicated by the fact that we don't want to harm the otters.

What? Otters, mink, herons and leeches?! Forget doing any work, we should get a TV crew in and make a fortune from one of those animal diary programmes. In this credit crunch doom-laden time, fluffy bitey animals is what we need!

If there are any other weird animal antics, you'll hear it here first. It won't feature badgers, as they've been moved to a new home, but I'm hoping that we may diversify to become a zoo and bring in big cats and polar bears. At least, that would give the mink something to think about!