SO WHOOPEE! We haven't all plummeted over the fiscal cliff then.

I don't know about you, but I'm sick of feeling like a lemming - poked by world events out of my control to jump in to the icy unknowns of financial oblivion.

And so the stock markets surge. Well...

SAMANTHA Cameron's Fiat 500 sold at auction for just north of £18,000 this month - a cool £10,000 MORE than experts predicted.

The Prime Minister bought the car - the sort you see pootling around Turin and Rome in classic Italian movies - for her birthday in 1998.

Separately, Paul...

Good news (finally) from the housing market where a couple of new surveys have provided a smidgeon of cautious hope for owners.

Firstly, property prices are falling at the lowest rate for two years. That's right. Prices. Are. Falling. At. The. Lowest. Rate. For. Two. Years.

So, er, they're still...

If research for housing charity Shelter is to be believed, we Brits are in danger of losing our status as a nation of homeowners.

A YouGov poll shows 59% of adults who do not own their own home now believe they will never be able to afford to buy locally.

I travel the length and breadth of the country throughout the year, visiting literally thousands of homes. I've seen first-hand the absolute carbuncles put up on properties under existing laws that already allow extensions only half the size the Government is now proposing.

We've all had our run-ins with planners,...