Dunces with Wolves

When it comes to money, Bernard Jones is a bit of a dunce. The retired civil servant and amateur investor discovers that when share prices start plunging his wealth falls even faster. As the credit crunch bites, he and his share club cronies at the Ring o'Bells pub find they can't bank on a bank, build wealth on a housebuilder, nor rely on a retailer.

Bernard can, however, rely on his domineering wife Eunice. A woman of persistent passion and advancing dress size, she single-handedly keeps Britain's consumer spending alive. From sustainable teak gnocchi spoons to Andalucian macramé shoe organisers, there isn't much you can teach Eunice about stocking up on essentials.

Though Eunice runs the household with a rod of organic celery, Bernard is never quite defeated. His elevenses of biscuits and cakes may be switched for endive and papaya salad, his prostate prodded, his railway modeling hobby ridiculed, but he comes out fighting.

With a mordant eye and caustic pen, he goes in to battle not just against the injustices of marriage, but on behalf of the financially downtrodden everywhere.

For those who lost money on Northern Rock, those who were short-changed by Equitable Life and those who were gobbled up by the wolves of the stock market, Bernard Jones is your champion, an anti-hero for our age of over-achievement.