Every January, I hand out awards to the world’s top purveyors of business twaddle for outstanding achievement during the past 12 months. This year, however, I was fearful that my ceremony would not be able to go ahead.

Last September, I wrote a column pointing out that the crash had made the bottom fall out of market in management bullshit; business people seemed to have renounced waffle and were being rather sober and sensible. While this might have been a good thing for the world as a whole, for my awards ceremony it was a catastrophe.