Another Fine Mess - or Some Terrible Dream?

Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling gave a press conference early yesterday morning. They look more like Laurel and Hardy every day - the know-it-all fat man and the nervier thin man. The chancellor ought to have a silly hat and a smile both anxious and ingratiating.

I pictured them on the doorstep of a fine mansion. The lady of the house plans to hire them to move her grand piano.

"Are you sure you are experienced at moving pianos?"

"Why, yes, ma'am, very experienced."

"Because this piano is a priceless heirloom."

"You may be sure it will be safe in our hands, ma'am."

The British piano might once have been a Steinway, but you know what happens next.

Most of all the two men looked tired, as if they had just arrived from Aberdeen on an all-night bus. Gordon Brown more or less had, having got back from the Middle East in the small hours - no, the medium hours - of yesterday.

He had bags under his eyes. Alistair Darling's face was drawn and saggy. He has aged 10 years in 18 months. They gave the impression of men who are not even sure if they are awake.

Will this all turn out to be some terrible dream? Or is the reality proving worse than the original nightmare?

As always, the prime minister tried to convince us that the problems were worse abroad.

And he was "angry" with the Royal Bank Of Scotland, whose management team could have spent 24 hours a day feeding £50 notes into a shredder without wasting a fraction of what they lost in toxic loans. If you have an overdraft of £5 they're down on you like a ton of bricks. But if you want a couple of billion - hey, no problem!

"Yus, I am angry with RBS and what happened," the prime minister told us. But he didn't sound angry. He sounded tired.

"We have got to realize that anger is not enough." He liked that line, so he said it again. Rhetoric was not enough either, he said. Glad he realizes that.

Someone asked if the government had any idea how much money it might need to save the banks. Wasn't national bankruptcy a real possibility? He grew very tense. Tired but tense. "I utterly dispute what you are saying. I would urge you to be very cautious in the remarks you make."

If he hadn't been so weary, it might have been a threat. "Be careful, sonny. I know where your editor lives."

There was a brief flash of life when he welcomed the former Conservative chancellor Ken Clarke back to David Cameron's front bench lineup. "He supports our policy on Europe and on VAT, and is probably quietly supportive on many other policies," the prime minister said.

So he wasn't too fatigued to stick in a party political skewer.

But in the distance we could hear splintering wood and the jangling clang of piano strings.