To me, it seems painfully obvious that what this world needs now is not love sweet love, but instead something much more important : a name for the time in which we’re living.

It’s a time of great economic, political and social uncertainty, and what’s more the weather’s cold and snow is getting in the way. During the similar period in the 1970s, some bright spark called it the ‘Winter of Discontent’ (quoting Shaky, no less), and summed it all up in a mere handful of words – genius, and that’s why the phrase is still used even today to describe that era. Not as often as ‘-gate’ is slapped on the end of a situation by lazy journalists, sure, but that happens more often than most of us blink, so the comparison’s probably unfair.

Anyway, before the last of the snow melts on this sceptr’d isle (see what I did there?), I think it’s time that we tried to capture the zeitgeist, and have a quick round of Name That Time.

I invite your suggestions, but in the meantime, here are mine:

– The Even Greater Depression
– The Big Freeze
– The Bank Nationalisation Programme
– The Winter We Most Needed Woolies
– Boys (And Girls) In The Brown Stuff
– I’m Ready For My Foreclosure
– At Last The 1929 Show
– The Day I Swapped My Mortgage For Two Goldfish

Think my suggestions are garbage? That you can do better? Then please leave your suggestions using the Comment facility!