No one is the slightest bit surprised that Alistair Darling has confessed to the BBC's Andrew Marr that he now does not expect the UK economy to start growing again until 2010.

At the time of the Pre-Budget Report last November, the Chancellor was widely mocked when he claimed that we would pull out of recession by the start of the third quarter of 2009 - although there was always the suspicion he came under pressure from Gordon Brown to paint such a rosy picture. Darling's true feelings were on display last August when he forecast that Britain was facing the worst economic crisis in at least 60 years. That looked prescient when Lehman Brothers et al hit the wall shortly afterwards.

How Darling must be looking forward to discussing plans for his Budget on 22 April with Gordon over the Easter holidays...

* It's not all gloom. New York economics professor and forecaster of the global financial crisis Nouriel Roubini, aka Dr Doom, tells Portfolio magazine about his moniker: “It's a nice nickname. But I tell you, the day when we reach bottom, I'll be the first one to call in and say Doctor Doom has become Doctor Boom. I'm not a permabear.”

* Time for some mature reflection on the G20 summit from Alastair Campbell: "So ask yourself - what message, if any, have you heard from David Cameron before, during and since the G20?" writes the former No. 10 spin doctor on his blog.

"There will be different responses, but mine would be 'nah nah nah nah nah.' In acting as he has in recent weeks, flying round the world, never off the phone, despatching officials left, right and centre to try to assess the best possible outcome and then work towards it, Gordon has been focusing on the British economy. Because without the global economy reviving, nor will ours. Time to revive 'no time for a novice'. Because in this case, it is true. DC is no Obama. I'm beginning to wonder if he is even William Hague." What does that make Gordon?

Slice of cost-cutting at Domino's

In another bit of cost-cutting, Domino's Pizza roped in its chief executive, David Brandon, to star in its latest adverts in the US. Brandon struts along Capitol Hill via Wall Street and Main Street delivering his “super big taste bailout” pizza deals. “I'm not bailing out the fat cats on Wall Street,” says Brandon, before snatching away a pizza from a bald bloke in pinstripes, with a smirk and the comment: “Sorry, Mr Hedge Fund.” Instead, he says, he is “bailing out you hard-working people on Main Street”.

But Brandon himself is hardly Mr Average. He earns more than $10 million a year from his positions at Domino's plus three directorships including a board position at Burger King. And in last year's Presidential election campaign, he was one of John McCain's major donors. There's one fat cat who doesn't need a bailout.

* Altium analyst David Stoddart is a fan of JD Sports Fashion, the clothing retailer loved by downwardly mobile teenagers, advising clients to snap up the stock. But he's not so impressed with the management's use of grammar, flagging up a mistake in yesterday's note: “The board are (sic) pleased to report that the positive sales uplift reported for the Christmas trading period.” Next they'll be splitting their infinitives.

* Don't shed a tear for the management of CareCapital, the property developer that specialises in hospitals and medical care centres. There they were plotting a buyout when — oops! — news leaked out and the share price shot up 80%. That pushed the shares from 4.6p to 8.5p, and the market capitalisation from £3.55 million to £6.5 million. Out comes the company statement saying it has “noted the untoward share-price movement”. Untoward — that's not a word you see often in a company statement. But in this case it's right because Dr Michael Sinclair and his fellow execs are going to have to come up with at least an extra £2 million in their bid to take the company private. But then anyone who bought the shares when CareCapital floated on AIM just two-and-a-half years ago at 30p a share would argue they should pay a darn sight more.

Backing the City is still a good each-way bet

The City has not had much luck so far this year — and so it proved for the big-money owners at Aintree last weekend. Mon Mome, 100-1 winner of the £900,000 Grand National, was a real shock. His owner, Vida Bingham, is not a wheeler-dealer — she's a 75-year-old former international bridge player who rarely has more than one horse in training. However, normal order was resumed with the placed horses, all of which are owned by well-known business figures. Champion National Hunt owner David Johnson, founder of lending company Commercial First, had second-placed Comply or Die while Cenkos Securities chief Andy Stewart's gelding My Will was third. The fourth horse was State of Play, owned by William Rucker, chief executive of Lazards. So the City bigwigs were still in the money.

OK, you can keep the Maserati

The Government, or rather, Andy Burnham, Culture Secretary, has led the way in rejecting the European Union's green light for paid product placement in films and dramas, proposed in a new audio-visual and media directive taking effect in December. But another part of the directive proposes a common regime on the unpaid placement of props, which is widespread in the UK. A seminar to discuss the directive earlier this month was told that some countries favoured a specific price limit on the value of props, with Austria setting a 100,000 euro ceiling. “But what if we want to have a Maserati in our production?” gasped a delegate.

“They don't have Maseratis in Austria,” quipped a Government official, who soothingly said the aim was to leave the current UK system as untouched as possible.

* BSKYB has just hosted two lavish events. First, the premiere of Skellig, the new £5 million adaptation of David Almond's children's book at the Curzon, Mayfair, with a follow-on champagne party at Whisky Mist. Then Sky Arts hired the Barbican Hall for the premiere of a two-and-a-half-hour opus, In Search of Mozart, followed by more drinks. As former ITV executive and GMTV chairman Clive Jones noted over cocktails at Whisky Mist, Sky is the only one in British TV with money at the moment...