It was announced this week that two streets in the town of Wincanton in Somerset are to be named after the Discworld series of novels by Terry Pratchett. The town – which is already the first town in Britain to be officially twinned with a fictional place, Ankh-Morpork, from Pratchett's novels – now has a Peach Pie Street and Treacle Mine Road. Then there was the news that a version of Quidditch, Harry Potter's favourite sport, is now being played in a Welsh secondary school. Renamed muggle, the game is played without broomsticks.

Both events made me think about the relations between economics and national mood. In uncertain times, do people turn towards fantasy to help them get through it?

Of course, it's a little unscientific to just use two stories in the media to develop a whole hypothesis. But my media friends also tell me that the industry specifically seeks out stories like these in times of recession and turmoil, as people thirst for a bit of escapism. How else could you account for the success of prog rock bands like Yes in the mid seventies, as the country shuddered to a standstill and there were riots on the streets?

Lyrics such as "As one with the knowledge and magic of the source; Atuned to the majesty of music; They marched as one with earth" could only speak to you under the most stressful of situations.

Punk music only emerged as the economy began to recover and it was able to break the recessionary spell against good taste. So, the moral is perhaps to be mindful of new ideas as we go through these difficult times: what seems fitting and meaningful today could just look like a load of old Quidditch tomorrow.