Where does that come from, by the way?

I mean, is it just me, or does it happen to other people?

As soon as I mentioned the US state of Mississippi, for some reason, my internal monologue goes, M-I-S-A-W-S-R-P-R-P-R.

Where does that come from?

I can't even remember where that comes.

What is it's not, is it Tom Sawyer?

Why, it's the strangest thing. It's like a sort of Pavlov's dog reaction.

I assume whenever I come across, in any context whatsoever, the word Mississippi, M-I-W-A, just went again.

M-I-S-I-W-S-I-P-R. It must come from somewhere. I've got absolutely no idea. The reason why Mississippi, M-I-S-I-S-R-W-P-I-P-I is interesting in the context of this astonishing number-crunching in the Financial Times today, because I think it's the poorest state in America, and we would be poorer than them per head if it wasn't for London.

Now, obviously, this is not quite as epic or as sweeping as it initially appears,

because all economies are diverse and disparate.

So, you know, to separate, every economy in the world is going to have a nucleus.

Do you see what I mean, an engine room?

So any country, whether it's state or any state, whether it's part of a federation, like American states, or whether it's state or any state, whether it's a part of a federation like American states

or whether it's a nation, like the UK.

It's going to have an engine room.

There are going to be bits of it that are driving the economy and bits of it that are being driven.

But goodness me, that is an astonishing statistic.

John Byrne Murdoch, by the way. I think he's been on the programme. But I don't think I've met him

face to face. He is probably my favourite journalist working in Britain today. It's been of

enormous help to me working on my new book. Some of the graphs and the number crunching that he's done.

And of course, what would you call it?

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