Is the Ross/Brand scandal the BBC's Jo Moore moment? Like the notorious "good day to bury bad news" e-mail, it was a lapse that revealed the darkness behind the facade - with devastating consequences.

In the case of Jo Moore, we saw the sheer amoral cynicism of the New Labour's news manipulation obsession. For the BBC the Andrew Sachs interview casts an ugly light on the broadcaster's declining standards and the way in which commercial priorities means "talent" now runs the show.

Like the Jo Moore incident on 9/11, the outrage has taken a few days to build, almost as if people could not initially believe what they read they were so aghast. Another parallel is the way in which the initial apologies were slow and inadequate. Only when the scale of the anger became clear were more abject expressions of regret forthcoming.

One reason people feel so upset is because most regard the BBC as one of the country's finest institutions, overwhelmingly a force for good.

How can an organisation responsible for Planet Earth, Cranford, Life on Mars, Dr Who and, of course, Fawlty Towers, also churn out this offensive bilge? Jonathan Ross earns a reported £6 million a year, that's £120,000 a week, or around £17,000 a day. I don't know what Andrew Sachs was paid for his unforgettable portrayal of Manuel, but I'd be surprised if it was more than Ross's daily rate.

Put it another way. The BBC collects £3.368 billion a year from the licence fee and pays 0.178 per cent of it to Ross. The licence is £139.50 per household and 0.178 per cent of that is around 25p. Perhaps viewers who are particularly outraged that they pay the wages of the man who so insulted Andrew Sachs should withold the 25p Ross levy next time they are asked to cough up. That would send a message to the hierarchy. Not in my name, Mark Thompson, not in my name.

I'd like to think - and perhaps I am being woefully self-deluding here - there are not too many people in the world in whom I inspire outright loathing. Unfortunately, for a journalist who writes about consumer affairs, in my case the list is headed by Sir Philip Green. The great rag trade knight (don't dare call him mister)  and I have not hit it off since I wrote what was only a mildly less than totally flattering profile some years ago when he bought Arcadia. I still wince when a I recall the phone-call I took from Britain's favourite tax exile that night on my mobile. It ended with the journalistic equivalent of the total breaking of diplomatic relations between him and all the organisations he controls and the Standard. Fortunately there was eventually a thawing and a year or so later I spoke to Sir Philip about his financial results. Again, a reasonably balanced piece followed (or so I thought) and again the blistering "hairdryer" rant. The same once more when we (or more specifically I) reported the £1 billion dividend he paid himself and his family from Arcadia profits. I'm sorry, but there comes a point when a chap has to ask himself where a relationship is going wrong. I am now cast into the outer darkness. When Sir Philip recently got in touch with the Standard about the very solid results from his empire he specifically asked that Jonathan Pr*** (modesty prevents me from writing his nickname for me but suffice it to say it rhymes with Sir Francis Crick) should not be allowed to write them up. Fair enough but I do wish the great man would let bygones be bygones. It really isn't worth a billionaire's time to get so worked up about a humble scribe. No-one bows in admiration more than me for Sir Philip's many achievements. I don't ever expect to be invited to one of his extraordinary birthday bashes. But given that he might be the only retailer left standing when the recessionary dust has settled it would be nice if we could at least talk. Sir Philip, give me a call some time.

Recession - certainly the talk of it - seems to have dogged us for months. But technically we are not even half there yet. The people who decide these things define recession as two consecutive quarters of negative growth. So far we have only had one. Even that is yet to be confirmed, although it almost certainly will be when Friday's GDP figures are published.

So, it will be three months before we know for sure that the dreaded R-word is officially back to haunt us - for the first time in the 21st century.

When it happens it will be unchartered territory for anyone younger than about 35 - at least in their adult lives. Remarkably, the British economy has not been in reverse gear since the Spring of 1992.

Then it was still reeling from a full year of 15 per cent interest rates. It took the ERM debacle on Black Wednesday - when an even fresher faced David Cameron shuffled sheepishly behind Norman Lamont on the steps of the Bank of England - to jolt the economy back into life.

This will be the fourth recession of my 43 year life. Each has been very different. The mid-Seventies downturn was a kind of Blitz for the Bay City Rollers generation when the great struggle with the miners meant the lights seemed to be more often off than on. Emergency energy saving measures left TV closing down at 10pm, gloriously enabling me to stay up for Match of the Day for the first time - the programme came on two hours earlier than usual.

The second great downturn, in 1980 and 1981, was grimmer, a horrifically unpalatable dose of Thatcherite medicine to cure the ailments of the post-War economy. No-one who can remember that time - the economic blanket bombing of huge swathes of the country, 3.4 million unemployed, the near break down of civil society in the inner cities - would wish its return. Or anything like it.

With the distance of quarter of a century it is easy to forget just how long it took to recover. Unemployment did not fall below three million until June 1987. Amazingly it was another decade, just after the landslide election of Tony Blair, that the jobless total dropped below two million.

The early Nineties recession was the downturn of broken dreams when the Lawson boom imploded in the Lamont bust. The pain was less intense, but very real for the many tens of thousands who suffered repossession.

So what are we in for this time? Higher unemployment certainly. Though no-one expects a return to three million on the dole. Much higher levels of repossession definitely.

But we have never before had a recession when interest rates were so low and falling and the pound was weak and getting weaker. Both should help business survive. Previous bouts of economic illness means that resistance is stronger than before, with a far more flexible workforce and management. We are a long way from the sheer grinding desperation that anyone of my age or older remembers so clearly from the bleak first half of the Eighties. Yes, it's tough out there, the worst for a long time, but we do need to keep a sense of perspective.

It's been months since I blogged, a shockingly long interval in an era when the world is capable of performing a double back flip twice before breakfast. And what times we live in? I started my career in journalism months before the 1987 Crash (the 21st anniversary of which is ominously close - what is it about October?). But that had nothing on this. Then, London's economy ploughed on almost without a blip once the wreckage was cleared away. It was eventually only felled in 1990 after the boom got out of hand and interest rates had to be jacked up to 15 per cent.

This time the crash is so much more multi-faceted. With its reliance on financial services London is a highly leveraged, derivative version of the real economy. Boy, things were good in the boom times and, yes there are going to be so much worse now that the cycle has turned.

But were they really that good? For some yes. But thanks to the foreign money that poured into the capital, London became the world's most expensive major city to live in. With home stamp duty and the congestion charge it was also the most heavily taxed part of Britain. It wasn't always easy being middle class in the oligarch's city of choice.

I can think of very few friends who have done much better than muddle through on painfully stretched household budgets in the supposed years of feast. Higher inflation means ordinary Londoners will have to make some further economies in the coming time of famine. But as long as they stay in work, and that may be a big if, they will get through. Just.

It will be back to Tesco and "unhappy" chickens for a while but, hey, we can live with that.

But many of those who have really enjoyed the good times - the City traders, the magic circle lawyers, the "big four" accountancy partners, the just plain rich - the shock will be much greater.

Those with money in the stock market will already be sitting on big losses this year. Worse, much worse if they invested in banks. Bonuses will typically be more than halved. Many will see their year of toil rewarded, insultingly, with just nothing more than their base salary. And tens of thousands will be out of work.

That's not to say there will be no sympathy. But honestly, it had got out of hand. Basements dug so deep they were within nodding distance of the earth's core, houses built with lifts because their wealthy owners can't be doing with stairs like the rest of us. Perhaps worst of all, that wretched traffic black hole opposite Harvey Nichols in Knightsbridge that has divided London into two zones. The Candy brothers, the developers behind the building site that caused this congestion vortex, have a lot to answer for. The billionaires can have their £100 million crash pads. But why do they have to make life such a misery for the rest of us? For those of us who have spent much of the past year waiting to get past Candy Central there will be little grief if their monument to 21st century greed never gets built.

As for the rest of us, life will go on. London can take it.