Who will walk the dog?

The domestic repercussions of the financial crisis have already hit home says the Telegraph. Just ask the City wives. The knock-on effect the strain and upheaval will have on the couple's marriage will emerge in time. For now, Sandra Davis, head of Family Law at Mishcon de Reya, points out that the stress caused by money woes can expose deep fault lines.

"With the financial markets lurching from one crisis to the next, city workers will be more concerned with their immediate employment prospects than with their relationships," says Davis. "Lehman Brothers employees and their wives are waking up to the reality that their stock is a busted flush, and the trophy wives of other investment bankers will be looking to cash in their chips before their husbands' stock options and deferred compensation go the same way. Either way, the outlook for the unhappily married appears fairly bleak."

Masters of the Universe, even those brought to their collective knees, evoke even less sympathy than estate agents down to their last des res, but this is no time to observe that it would take a heart of stone not to laugh at how the mighty - or more precisely, the mightily rich - hath fallen.

Of course, the big boys - and girls - at the top understood they were in a high-stakes business where risk was the name of the game, a game, they have belatedly discovered, where there really are losers as well as winners. You may have little sympathy for the City suits, but spare, if you will, a thought for their wives.

Not only have they lost status, but their army of support staff is in severe jeopardy: whether the nannies, cleaners, dog walkers and personal trainers? What will become of the independent schools where they send their children, even the charities who benefited from their conspicuous largesse?