It’s hard to say at what point reading about the demise of the bankers lost its intensely pleasurable edge, but it did, didn’t it? Everything turned sour a little while back – at roughly the same time the fear set in for the rest of us, I suppose. And when was that?

I can’t even remember. In any case, the good times seem long gone. We appear to have reached that point in the economic cycle when all but the most complacent are beginning to consider what back-up careers they may shortly be required to call on.

I have several, as it happens, without wishing to show off. All of them boring and unpleasant. I sincerely hope they won’t need to be revisited. Nevertheless, in times like these, it’s good to know they’re there.

My father used to say, after each of my school reports came in: “Carry on like this, you idle girl, and you’ll end up cleaning lavatories.” How right he was. While my friends were all hard at work watching Neighbours at university, I was retrieving false teeth from unusual crevices, changing well-used bed sheets and cleaning lavatories at a pensioners’ home near Fulham Broadway. So, there’s that career to fall back on. And, as I tell myself as I lie awake at 4 o’clock each morning, no matter how extreme an economic downturn, OAPs will always need teeth and lavatories. Thank God for them.

What of everyone else, the graduates who never got their hands dirty, who frittered their youth away passing exams and watching Neighbours, and who are also, I presume, lying awake most nights and worrying? I can only hope they’ve been reading the same uplifting articles I have about former high-flyers, who lost their jobs in the last recession and are now blissfully fulfilled growing cucumbers in Cornwall.

It’s quite difficult to take anyone seriously when they advertise their happiness too vociferously. Even if they don’t, and are all utterly wretched, still secretly dreaming of black cabs and calls-on-hold and wonderful expense accounts, there’s always the story of the heroic Yorkshire miner Jimmy Heselden. In case you haven’t heard, he is the man who founded a company in the early 1980s with his mining redundancy pay and is now reportedly worth £205m – from the ashes of disaster and so on. Who knows? That redundancy pay could be the key to founding an empire or fulfilling a long-cherished dream.

That said, it’s hard to imagine anyone founding an empire or fulfilling a dream from a kebab shop in Notting Hill Gate. But you never know. Number 279 Portobello Road, aka the Portobello Hot Food Centre, a kebab house, is sitting vacant at the moment. It is on the market, with two floors of living space above, for £1.3m – which is too much, considering the disgusting state it’s in and the fact that nobody’s got any money any more, and that it’s on the wrong end of Portobello, and that it will probably stink of frying until the day the world comes to an end.

It does have potential, though – not only as a living space, but also as a business, I’m told. The kebab shop was running at a profit until the tenants were given their marching orders several months ago. Its owner, who has two other properties on this famous street, was keen to sell up so that he could, according to the agent, “invest the money in Dubai”.

A sign of the times, perhaps, even though the market over there is looking distinctly wobbly. As is the fact that, six months on, the property is still on the market. Having moved out the tenants from the shop and the bedsits upstairs, the sale the owner thought he had secured sadly fell through.

Actually, judging by the shop floor (which measures 30ft by 12ft, including the kitchen), it looks as if the tenants left in rather a bad-tempered hurry. There are dirty tea towels hanging on the glass display counter, amid piles of haphazardly stacked Hot & Tasty Chicken takeaway boxes. Anoraks are hanging in the cloakroom cupboard and what appear to an industrial fryer, griller and food mixer are still in situ, having never, apparently, benefited from a final wash.

Upstairs, accessed by a separate door, are the four bedsits, with one shared bathroom, shower room and toilet. The communal areas are carpeted with a peculiar nonslip sandpaper-effect flooring. Everywhere smells slightly of damp, slightly of frying and strongly of stale smoke.

Not selling it very well, am I? I think the word to focus on here is potential. There will always be a certain magic to Portobello Road – even the wrong end of it – and No 279 has a licence to sell any food, not just kebabs. So, get the fumigators in, light some scented candles, open an organic bakery (times may be hard, but there’s always room for one of those in Notting Hill), put some carpet down and maybe build a roof terrace. I think it could be lovely, I really do.

The question is, in these rotten times, can you be sure your redundancy cheque won’t bounce? Come to that, are you even eligible for one? And will the owner, in his enthusiasm to get his money out of the sinking ship that is Britain, accept a cut-price offer on the place?

279 Portobello Road, London W10, £1.3m

What is it? A commercial premises with two floors of living space above

Where is it? At the wrong end of fashionable Notting Hill

Who is selling it? Elliot Miller; 020 7221 9479, www.elliotmiller.co.uk

Not tempted? Here’s what £1.3m buys elsewhere

Cumbria In the Lake District National Park, Hare Hall is a four-bedroom farmhouse with 1½ acres of land. A detached barn with studio flat could be let out as holiday accommodation. Carter Jonas; 01539 722592, www.carterjonas.co.uk

Anglesey Wern Farm, in Menai Bridge, is a six-bedroom property in 75 acres, used both as a family home and a B&B. In the grounds are stables, a tennis court and a summerhouse. Savills; 01952 239500, www.savills.com

North Yorkshire Ten-bedroom Amerdale House is run as a hotel at present, but is being sold with planning permission for conversion into a house. It is in Arncliffe, 15 miles from Skipton. Knight Frank; 01423 530088, www.knightfrank.com

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