Having studied the figures from the latest salary survey in this week's mag, TS can only conclude that our readers are a bunch of pessimists. Eighties clothing may once again be the fashion for those strolling down Carnaby Street but the world of business shows no sign of a resurgence of the old Gordon Gecko-style aggression in the career stakes.

About two-thirds of you expect a pay rise of less than 10%, with most of those anticipating little more than inflation. Worse still, 5% of you expect to be unemployed this time next year. TS could accept this if it was people coming up to retirement age, but most were entering the prime of their career. Either their business is in trouble or these people are living in constant fear of being found out as rubbish at their jobs, TS understands.