* WE have a department at Nerd House which supplies economic pundits

to the television news bulletins. The TV people phone us up and say:

''This run on the yen today. We need to know what it means to someone in

Pinner who requires spares for his Toyota.''

''Fine,'' we say, surreptitiously looking up Pinner

in the gazetteer and keying

find string . . . yen into

our computer to discover

exactly what it is. ''We have just the man.''

Our pundits sit in a sort of duty-room, like World War Two fighter

pilots waiting for the order to scramble. Except that they are wearing

suits. They pass the time with inconsequential banter, drinking coffee.

They are actually quite nervous, anticipating the call ''Bandits at two

o'clock''; or more usually at 6.25pm.

When the call comes, the chosen one blasts off to the TV studio in a

taxi, rehearsing his spiel. There are but two rules he must obey when

the camera light comes on: look confident and don't pause to draw

breath. It doesn't matter what you say.

It has worked very well. Then this week, we supplied a pundit to

explain in eight seconds why the pound had plummeted following a

newspaper report that the PM and the Chancellor had fallen out. A report

which, we were later assured, wasn't worth the enormous reels of paper

it was written on.

A plummeting of the pound is hardly a new sensation, so we didn't

choose our most experienced pundit. Instead we sent The Cherry (Vietnam

grunt-speak is also popular here) and when the question was put to him,

live on-air, he dried. He couldn't think of any logical reason

whatsoever. His mouth gaped; he spluttered to a halt.

It was one of our worst moments. The pound might just recover, but I

don't think The Cherry ever will. We have put him into analysis. If the

pound continues to fall, we'll blame ourselves for sending him. All we

can say is: Oops, sorry.

* In the Nerd House commissariat, we were puzzling over the latest

fashionable Department of Transport bullshit phrase. ''Shadow

franchise?'' pondered The Braces. ''Probably from the verb to shadow.

That must be what you'll get when they hive off MI5.''

This was greeted with general derision. All sorts of other derivations

were explored, from shadow boxing to eye shadow. Then up spake Ms

Angelica Banana-Skyne, the High Whitecraigs polymath.

''A shadow franchise,'' she predicted, ''is undoubtedly one that looks

very strong indeed when the sun is shining, but which mysteriously

disappears in overcast conditions.'' A hush fell over us. Sometimes you

know instinctively when someone has made a profound and prophetic

observation. Moments like this are rare, but worrying.

* A farmer of our acquaintance has just welcomed his son home from a

world tour, during which the lad gained a proficiency certificate in

scuba diving. The boy's timing might have been better. ''We could have

used him in the tattie harvest,'' said my friend. ''With a scuba diver,

we wouldn't have had to leave half the tatties behind in the bottom

field. Mud? I bet there were spiny sea-urchins doon there.''

To rub it in, potato prices have ''rocketed doonwards'' (as he

eloquently put it) this year. He started off by selling several tonnes

for pig food, watching with poorly-concealed irritation as they were

sprayed with green dye to make them unsaleable for human consumption.

Then he thought: that green dye. That's the market to get into. The

way things are they'll need it by the hundred-tonne. We left him looking

speculatively at the bottom field and wondering how to develop green

mud.

These guys are survivors. Remember that when you find the tatties they

sold at 2p a pound have rocketed doonwards to 17p at the supermarket.