No denying, it's tough times for newspapers right now. And some of them are facing the dilemma of whether they take a positive or a negative stance on the issue of bonuses in the city.

For some years prior to the 2007 credit crunch they had been tireless in their support for multi-million dollar end of year bonuses, claiming that this was the price of attracting the brightest and the best to London. It was claimed that any attempt to regulate would naturally create a brain drain, as well as deprive the wider economy of the drickle down effect of the bankers' ample spending.

Post 2007, the same papers were outraged at how irresponsible banks had been in paying these outlandish bonuses, based as they were on high risk strategies that subsequently brought the economy to its knees. Phrases such as 'casino capitalism' were common on the pages of all the papers - liberal and conservative.

Now the climate is changing once again, and no one wants to read the market wrong. "Christ!" said one financial columnist to me, off the record of course, "If the bonus-bearing bankers are back and they are here to stay, none of us lot want to be on the wrong side of them. One of the best weekends I ever had was on the yacht of a certain head of credit derivatives from one of the top US banks. If these guys are back with a vengeance, then, hey, it's not our job to judge them. Right?"

Climate change secretary, Ed Miliband, claimed yesterday that despite his department's emissions targets, the government fully intends to preserve affordable air travel for the masses.

"If you had 80% carbon dioxide emissions across the board, as some people have called for in aviation, you would go back to the 1974 levels of flying. I don't want a situation  where only rich people can afford to fly."

In response to Mr Miliband's promise of cheap air travel for the masses, a spokesman for the 'masses' said, "Of course, he's right, you know. With a cabinet like the one we currently have running the country, why should it only be the tax-exile rich who can afford to fly away from this God forsaken land?"

There is worldwide despair tonight as it is announced that NASA has abandoned its fifth shuttle launch.

Crowds are rioting, ordinary people are up in arms... from Somalia to Seoul, from Tokyo to Tonga, from Honolulu to Harrogate. People feel abandoned, hurt, betrayed. They see all their hopes, their dreams, their goals going up in smoke before their very eyes. What is their future now?

It has been alleged that thousands of Star Trek fans have just committed mass suicide in a cave in California upon hearing the news. There are also reports of the random killing of tribesmen in the Essex countryside, and strange prodigies have been seen on Hampstead Heath. Apparitions with their hair ablaze were seen running hysterically around Westminster Green and the specters of Bill Gates, Sergey Brin and James Murdoch were seen tripping, hand in hand, in fear and anguish through Yellowstone Park.