Giant chunks of the mainstream media continue to believe that the people best suited to talk about the economy aren’t those who live and breathe it, but those who have the luxury of being able to view it like a curious archaeological find from their Ivory Towers in the City of London.

And so they unceasingly quote economists and market commentators, most of whom are on whacking great six figure salaries and have no bloody clue whatsoever what things are REALLY like on the ground.

Here at Newspage, that makes our blood boil. We reckon that if you want to give an accurate reflection of economic reality, you need to listen to the people who are in the trenches, not General %$£@*!^ Melchett eating his marmalade sandwiches and sipping Earl Grey in a chateau 30 miles from the front line.

People like Chris Ramsbottom of Coventry-based holistic therapy company, The Amethyst Centre, whose customers “are cancelling booked appointments or just not turning up because of the pingdemic” and who “cannot go on like this without some form of financial support.”

People like Rachel Hayward of Derby-based charity Annabel’s Angels, for whom “the past 18 months have been unbelievably stressful” due to a “90% decrease in income versus a 95% increase in demand for our help.”

Not that it’s all bad news. Far from it.

For certain Newspagers, like Andrew Deighton, founder of Derby-based AWD Development Solutions, things have definitely picked up: “The second quarter of the year was quite a bit better for me than the first. I’m a lot more confident about the future of my business than I have been for a long time.”

Andrew Deighton of AWD Development Solutions in Derby is more confident than he has been for some time.

Jessica Ross, founder of Bournemouth-based Jessica Ross Marketing, is also upbeat, saying “business just hasn’t slowed down at all”.

Much the same applies to Jenni Letheren, owner of Fareham-based JLL Accountancy & Admin: “Business definitely got better for us during the second quarter and also July.”

Andrew Elcock, Managing Director at Nottingham-based database specialist, Xynomix, is another small business owner who is pretty confident right now: “Business has increased for us, partly I think due to the resilience afforded to us by being a tech company. So we’re fairly confident for the year ahead.”

Down in the smoke, Sarah Steele, Business Development Director at London-based Medical Practice Management, is also “feeling confident about the next 12 months.”

Jessica Ross’s marketing business is thriving despite the economic uncertainty.

For others, it’s a mixed bag.

Anna Cargan, founder of the Barrow-in-Furness-based second-hand childrenswear business, Buildabundle, says July was her quietest month for a year, but “thankfully August has rebounded brilliantly and sales are back to lockdown levels this month, and we’re pretty confident in the strength and demand for online retail going forward.”

Likewise, although Jo Ferreday, director of Market Harborough-based events company, Sheer Edge, “had an extremely positive July”, she says she has had to “move a lot of events into September and we are still seeing large confirmed events doing an about-turn and postponing to 2022”.

We just wish the media would hurry up and do an about-turn and start quoting more real people rather than the usual macroeconomic boffins in the City or Canary Wharf, who pontificate for an hour and then bugger off to The Ivy for a bottle of Petrus.

If they don’t, we will.

The pingdemic is proving a nightmare for Chris Ramsbottom of The Amethyst Centre in Coventry.