I'm buying us out of recession

The bank manager and I had an impossible relationship. I was sneaky, underhand, promising fidelity, but then slipping off for a cheap fling with Miss Selfridge.

Boyfriends attempted to revamp my finances in vain (a girlfriend without a cheque card does get boring). Even in my forties, my " house husband" tries to trick me into revealing how much my shoes cost. This from a man who collects first editions.

But suddenly everything has changed. Gordon Brown and Boris want me to go shopping at Westfield. It's our patriotic duty to spend our way out of a recession.

If only I'd known earlier, I wouldn't have wasted so much energy on guilt. I'm not even that extravagant. But being self-employed, I do "go rogue" before the cheque arrives. It's always capitalism 10, Liz 0.

Take yesterday's 20-minute blow-dry at Vidal Sassoon it cost me £42 (I could hire a van for that!). I'd assumed that nice girl with the tattoos was the temp. What possessed them to give me the assistant creative director?

In the past I'd have slunk away in tears. Nonsense, says Boris. "We don't have to line our rooms with newspaper, get into a foetal position and live on tins." The success of the nation depends on flaky girls flexing their credit cards.

Fantastic! Of course debt isn't big or clever. But I persist in believing you can "buy" yourself out of grief. A new dress/necklace gives you a vision of another life. One where you don't bore your friends or droop around like the worst sort of Thomas Hardy heroine.

In times of adversity, go for the grown-up cures therapy, philosophy, Pilates but these are long-term strategies. Shopping happens in a day.
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