News shows make a drama out of the financial crisis

AT THE MOMENT US Congress rejected the $700bn bailout I was watching Alistair Stewart on ITN. He had this great thing going with his weatherman, whom Alistair suspects is dishonest. "Do you always tell the truth?" asked Alistair. "It's a fine line," said the weatherman. "How can we tell?" "I twitch when I lie." Beat that for patter. Suddenly I'm looking at John Irvine in Washington standing on a hill. Face white, eyes electric, the whole nine yards. "This is a calamitous day," says Irvine, slowly. The camera goes in closer, to check. "As I speak, the Dow Jones is in freefall. THIS IS MELTDOWN." Cut to Katie Derham back in the studio, her voice a quiet level engine, promising that there will be more on the crisis at 10.

Immediately over on Channel 4, Jon Snow was rising to the challenge, swivelling ecstatically on his perch. "High drama tonight!" he roared over the drums in the signature tune, which were pounding in a holding pattern as though summoning Kong himself from the jungle. "At this very moment infection is seizing banks big and small!" Snow then pressed his notes to his chest and leaned forward very quickly - his way of saying the argument is over and he has won. Cut to a trader at USB financial services, openly staring in wonder ("Just moments ago I was in freefall. The wagons are circling.") Cut to a financial correspondent outside Bradford and Bingley HQ ("Codename for this crisis: giraffe.") Cut to the Tory Party Conference, where Snow socked it to the Guardian's Will Hutton: "I don't know how much you're aware in Birmingham, Will, but as I speak the world is falling on its head."

Just then my boyfriend walks in. "What the fuck is going on?" he says. "My taxi driver said that if I've got any savings I have to get them out now." I raise a dumb hand to the telly for assistance in clarification but at that moment the Channel 4 audience was being shown around the Turner prize exhibition at the Tate Modern and considering a mannequin sitting on a toilet wearing a nurse's hat. Arts correspondent Nicholas Glass suggested that the mannequin was an "exploration of the space between people". Evil forces were clearly operating around me. My first thought was of Ideal World, the genteel shopping channel that invites us to dangle happy fags over the side of the bath, and watch whilst others buy secret-skin scubasuits for the woman hoping to have a hand slipped round her waist on the dancefloor.

And lo, just then, Ideal World's Debbie Shore (whose new favourite book, btw, as fans will know, is 1984) was demonstrating a little robot that doubles as a vacuum cleaner, designed to be left alone, moving from room to room, discreetly hoovering, whilst its owner goes to the shops, or away on a magical anniversary cruise that hasn't been cancelled. Yes! In the kitchen Sky was on its knees begging my boyfriend not to switch channels. "DO NOT GO AWAY! We are sticking with this crisis as it happens." Turning up the sound on the robot I could just hear Keith Graves outside the New York Stock Exchange. "Look at the drama that's going on here," he was saying, as though observing a strange and beautiful land. "Even the tourists know that right now a drama is happening."