The Body of Lies Index: a more reliable economic indicator than anything the Office for National Statistics puts out.

I live in the East End of London and, looking around sometimes, it’s not always easy to tell that there’s a recession going on. That’s not because the area has somehow miraculously escaped the after-effects of the banking collapse and the financial crisis - far from it. No, it’s not easy to tell there is a recession going on because this place always looks like there is a recession going on.

Boarded-up shops, Poundland doing a roaring trade, a general vibe of poverty and make-do and mend – that was what it was like when I moved here during the boom years, and nothing much has changed since.

Yet even though this latest recession has been largely invisible here, that’s not to say there are not signs of the outside world’s economic woes. If you happen to be passing along Bow Road you’ll be able to see one of these signs, quite literally. Sitting just down from Bow Road tube station above the forecourt of a used car dealership is a gigantic billboard advertising the Ridley Scott movie, Body of Lies, starring Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio.

With its moody, dark design and a tagline that seems to express both the public and the bankers’ respective responses to the recession – ‘Trust No One. Deceive Everyone’ – this billboard has been looming over Bow Road since November 2008.

That’s right – November 2008. Not last year, but the year before. By my count, it’s actually been up there for 66 weeks, during which time Russell Crowe has probably gained another 20 lbs and DiCaprio has lost even more of the boyish good looks he once possessed.

Although it’s now been there so long that most people don’t even notice it anymore, whenever I see it it always sends a slight shiver of anxiety coursing through me. That’s not because I think the movie was crap – although, admittedly, it wasn’t that great - it’s because the fact that this ad is there indicates to me that no matter what some statisticians and optimists say, it’s clear we’re still in deep economic shit.

For me this poster isn’t advertising a half-decent Ridley Scott spy thriller; it’s advertising the fact that for well over a year there has not been one company in the whole of the Greater London area who have had enough money to buy an ad to replace Crowe and DiCaprio’s moody visages. We all knew that advertising was in trouble long before this recession started, but this is ridiculous.

That was why when it was announced the week before last by the Office of National Statistics that the UK had finally moved out of recession, the first thing I did after snorting in derision was take a little walk to see if Body of Lies was still there. Sure enough, it was and still is.

Now entering its 67th week, the Body of Lies billboard has become a sort of oblique economic performance indicator for UK plc, and one whose presence seems a more reliable gauge of the state of the country’s economic wellbeing than any pronouncements made by the Office for National Statistics, the Bank of England, Gordon Brown, Dave Cameron or Mervyn King.

And until that day comes when Crowe and DiCaprio are finally papered over by some other ad, I’ll be consulting the Body of Lies Index (BOLI, for short) before believing anything I’m told about us being out of the woods.