I am about to join the ranks of the business homeless. Tottering under the weight of its losses, the company that runs the business centre where I toil has announced its imminent liquidation. We remaining shell-shocked survivors of recession could soon be on the street: Scott the executive recruiter; Percy the property developer; Calvin the telecoms entrepreneur and the rest.

Warwick House, the homely, crumbling Victorian mansion where we lurk, is in Birmingham, epicentre for the earthquake damage from the UK recession. While the south-east appears oddly unscathed, the West Midlands, with its low skills and high reliance on manufacturing, has been badly hit. Of course, none of the occupants of Warwick House are manufacturers. You could not squeeze a robot welder in through the French windows. But the lesson of recession is that when the executioner pulls his little lever we all swing together.