Even the mobile phones market seems to be grinding to a halt.More bad news for Ericsson is yet more bad news too for poor old British Telecom. BT and the other big European PTOs act as a focal point for City disillusionment with the telecommunications sector as a whole, and it is with these companies that the clarion call for root and branch management change is at its loudest. As things stand, there is very little mechanism for translating such calls into action, which would mean in BT's case booting out the chairman, Sir Iain Vallance, or his chief executive, Sir Peter Bonfield, or both. However, if the company were forced into a rescue rights issue, the City would would get the chance to demand its pound of flesh.It's a terrible shame, for Sir Iain in particular, that it should ever have come to this. If things had gone according to plan, Sir Iain would have departed BT some while back and would now be sitting up in Edinburgh as Viscount Younger's anointed successor as chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland.

RBS's feisty Sir George Mathewson put paid to that, and Sir Iain was left to soldier on at BT.Memories in the City are short, but up until even a few years ago, Sir Iain was generally thought to have done a pretty good job at BT. Obviously he was ill suited for this latest period of manic deregulation and overinvestment in the telecommunications industry, but what telecoms executive can put their hand on their hearts and say they got it right this past few years?j.warner independent.co.uk.

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Elvis Costello's 'What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love and Understanding?' is hardly the most cheery song in the world. "I ask myself, is all hope lost?" sings the tormented musician. "Is there only pain and hatred and misery?" Elvis Costello's 'What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love and Understanding?' is hardly the most cheery song in the world. "I ask myself, is all hope lost?" sings the tormented musician. "Is there only pain and hatred and misery?" All of which doom and gloom makes it an unlikely choice of song to play over the closing credits of the first episode of a new BBC2 comedy drama.

But then Paul Whitehouse's Happiness surprises in all sorts of ways For a start, it's not very happy at all. The first episode opens with Danny (Whitehouse), the lead character, sombrely preparing to bury his wife, who has been killed in a road accident. It closes with him weeping on the kitchen table to the pitiless tones of Costello. After years of playing the chirpy funster in The Fast Show and Harry Enfield and Chums, Whitehouse has suddenly gone all serious on us. Like Woody Allen, he has entered a more mature, less laugh-out-loud-funny phase.Now 42, the co-writer, co-producer and star of Happiness maintains that when you reach a certain age, you naturally become more reflective. "The title of the series is, of course, ironic," says Whitehouse. "The show is pointing out the impossibility of complete happiness Danny tries to find it, but inevitably he can't He just muddles along - like we all do.

In fact, the only people who are happy the whole time are comedians - and that's why they all go mad It's not right to be 'up' all the time. Humour is supposed to be special, not something you live with 24 hours a day."David Cummings, the co-writer of Happiness and a former Fast Show collaborator, chips in. "Everyone arrives at a point where they ask themselves: 'Am I where I want to be?' When you're in your twenties, you're barrelling along towards a golden future and building empires. But once you've got a few years under your belt, you realise that maybe you haven't achieved as much as you thought you were going to.