Iceland’s second biggest bank, Landsbanki, has gone into receivership. The Icelandic government has had to borrow £3.1 billion from Russia to prevent the whole country going the same way. Terrible news. Or so you might think if you weren’t working for the British PR agency Rooster, on behalf of a no-frills airline.

  Ping! In comes an email from Rooster urging me to “BAG AN ICE-COOL BARGAIN WITH ICELAND EXPRESS”.

  It continues, with erratic punctuation: “A year ago a pint of beer cost around £6.50 in Iceland’s capital – it now costs £4.00. A three-course meal would have set holidaymakers back around £57.00, now just £35.00. With a saving of almost 40 per cent compared with 2007 – there has never been a cheaper time to visit colourful Reykjavik.”

 Unless, of course, you are one of the 300,000 British savers who had money in accounts with Landsbanki’s internet subsidiary Icesave, and you can no longer get at it.