A non-currency country

I popped out for a Z$25,000 loaf of bread last Friday. It had gone up to Z$30,000 dollars. I ran home for the extra, ran back to the shop - and the price of my loaf had risen to Z$44,000.

That's life in Zimbabwe today - or at least it was, until this week when our government took bold and decisive action to reduce the inflatory spiral, and predictably everything got even worse straight away.

Perhaps alarmed by the forecasts of doom issuing from the lips of American ambassadors and others, the government decided that the simplest way to cut prices was to... well, cut prices.

An order went out to all manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers to slash their prices