So.
The first January fiscal deficit since the Black Death. The month when all those lovely Corporation Tax payments, and all those lovely self-assessment income tax cheques are supposed to come in, has instead turned into the Black Hole of Death.
Tyler's back-of-envelope says that we're now on course for 2009-10 total borrowing of £180-185bn, compared to Darling's latest forecast of £178bn.
Well, that's not so bad, you say. Only another few bill. Hardly the Black Hole of Death.
Which just about says it all - we are now so used to fiscal meltdown, even borrowing in January can't shock us.
I've just watched Prof "Happiness" Blanchflower on C4 News telling us once again why we should just carry on borrowing. Apparently the government can spend and borrow us back to prosperity. And the alarming thing is that a lot of normally quite sensible people are still saying exactly the same thing.
I'm currently taking another long look at our debt history to see if I've missed something. Blog to follow.
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