Cheer up - you might have been a farmer

I've been mowing my way through a new cereal this week, writes Rural Affairs Editor Nathan Rous. It's called Credit Crunch. Admittedly it takes a little time to digest but so does porridge, and this is far better for you given that weight loss is guaranteed through resulting stress and high blood pressure.

I scour the papers littered in front of me and feel the onset of a dear old friend, Mr Migraine, as my eyes lurch from crisis to crisis: riots in the developing world resulting from food price hikes, banks in turmoil, houses in freefall and Cheryl Cole's ongoing marriage saga.

The burden of interminable gloom is pressing on my shoulders like an elephant trying to smooth out a fiver. Perhaps a cafetire of Gaviscon rather than the obligatory fresh coffee will ease the pain?

A flick of the DAB and I hear John Humphrys preaching the same misery on Radio 4. The only escape from the financial armageddon appears to be Birdsong FM, a continual loop of chirruping obviously designed for those with no access to the great outdoors. Like those of us living in Telford.

But even though a sparrow's morning call is pleasant, it's already competing with the shrill sound of global meltdown. Anyway, my head is playing a cruel game of Pictionary which means instead of seeing a feathered friend I visualise vultures circling. Don't you just hate mental metaphors.

Every waking minute the nation's thoughts are on interest rates, job security, credit-card debts and inventing an engine which runs on water. Having said that, given the relative supermarket price of water and beer it would be cheaper to have an engine which runs on John Smith's. More fun on the hard shoulder if you breakdown, too.

Farming, as we were told by the Country Land and Business Association last week, holds the key to the future of mankind.

We are looking to our farmers to somehow come up with a miracle crop which not only feeds the starving but allows your 4´4 to hit 150mph as well as avoid the congestion charge. Oh, and it has to be one of those David Copperfield crops which needs no space to grow in but yields a magnificent bounty at harvest time.

The county's young farmers are gathering tomorrow to discuss ways in which they can sustain the future of both the industry and our landscape, but if we think the burden is on our shoulders imagine the pressure these guys are under.

Yet where is all this tension getting us? Will worry make any difference in our fight against an economic slowdown, or will it simply make us less able to deal with the pressure?

Perhaps we should all take a leaf out of veteran director Mike Leigh's book. The self-confessed miserablist who brought us such weary films as Secrets And Lies and Vera Drake has decided it's about time we had something to smile about. A message the critics have been sending him for years.

Happy Go Lucky, which released across the country at the weekend, is a tale of unbridled joy; a two-fingered salute to those who walk around with the world on their shoulders. Or an elephant with a crumpled fiver.