The duo scavenges stray tins of peaches from houses largely looted years before, but clearly the tinned goods will soon run out altogether.

ECONOMIST: New fiction

Tinned goods and bottled water are the way forward.

FORBES: Remembering the Road to Baghdad

By combining its existing 1m names (gathered from people who had responded to previous offers on tinned goods) with lists of similar households bought from brokers, Heinz has built up a database of 4.6m people to send a copy of At Home, a free magazine of recipes which also promotes its products.

ECONOMIST: Hi ho, hi ho, down the data mine we go