The week in business

THE NUMBERS

$9 trillion

- the projected US 10-year deficit (almost $2 trillion more than estimated in February).

€1 million

- the asking price for 15 houses in Co Kilkenny - including an 18th-century mansion with a completed holiday-home development on its grounds.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"There is a rising risk of a double-dip W-shaped recession"

- the ever-cheerful economist Nouriel "Dr Doom" Roubini gives his tuppence worth on the future of the global economy.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK 2

"The difference between Iceland and Ireland was not one letter, but rather Ireland's membership of the European Union and the euro"

- Michael O'Leary pledges that Ryanair will spend more than €500,000 campaigning for a Yes vote in the second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

GOOD WEEK

Spice burgers

After its Lazarus-like resurrection, spice burger firm Walsh Family Foods staged another coup this week. In the latest twist in what is an increasingly bizarre tale, the firm secured a number of High Court injunctions on Tuesday against a former director who has, it claimed, been passing off burgers made by him as its product, a victory that went down well with fans of the "national treasure". As one member of a "save the spice burger" Facebook campaign put it: "Feck off Mr Slugworth, we don't want your rip-off SB!" (Slugworth being a rival chocolate maker in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory who tries to steal Willy Wonka's recipes.)

Ben Bernanke

US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke is to get another crack at the whip as US president Barack Obama nominated him for a second term. Although Bernanke has come in for strong criticism in the past, his handling of the financial crisis has won over the president, who praised his "outside-the-box" thinking and said he had kept the world's largest economy from sliding into another Great Depression.

BAD WEEK

Apple iPhone

If your iPhone starts vibrating wildly, hissing loudly and the screen starts to crack, chances are it's not just a clever application that simulates spontaneous combustion - it's probably the real deal. Reports of half-a-dozen new cases of exploding iPhones in France emerged this week, making it more difficult for the smartphone creator to maintain its stance that such incidents are "isolated", as it has done until now whenever similar cases occurred. Online rumours that all the iPhones in the world are going to explode at midnight on Steve Jobs's birthday remain unsubstantiated.

'Big Brother'

First the Seoige show gets cancelled, now Big Brother. It truly is the end of an era. Channel 4's definitive reality TV show is being axed after a decade of giving aspiring celebrities their 15 minutes of fame by locking them into a household of strangers on live television. In the past it drew record audiences and created its fair share of controversies, but its ratings and advertising revenues have dropped off in recent years. However, the cash-strapped channel insisted that the programme was still profitable and that the decision was made because the programme had "reached a natural end point on Channel 4".