Oh dear.

We were so sure this must be a proof copy, we almost didn’t bother to review this blurb. But no, this — sadly — is the final version.

The idea must have seemed neat in theory: outline the first few minutes of an ordinary day from an economics perspective. But in practice, it’s proven impossible to communicate this elegantly in the limited framework of a blurb, and the result is a garbled mess.

Leaving aside the questionable punctuation in the shoutlines, this reads extraordinarily clumsily. Because of its tortuous nature, all the cleverness of the idea has been diluted until it’s non-existent.

There’s one other big problem. This book is a TV tie-in with an expert, respected presenter. Where’s his photo? His name? His biography? The major USP of this book has been relegated to the inside flap, and there is no visual link at all to the prime-time programme.

Here’s a neat way to solve both these dilemmas in one go. Use a full-bleed picture of Evan Davis getting out of bed. Annotate the picture to show how everything in the room is made in Britain. At once you have something visually arresting and intellectually intriguing, without having to tie yourself in knots explaining what you’re doing.