It's feedback week, which began when I met a very nice man in the supermarket, who proposed a novel idea I thought I'd share with you.

"The next time you buy someone lunch," he said, "and they say 'My turn next time', say 'No'. Tell them that instead of buying you lunch next time, they should buy lunch for someone who would never expect to have lunch in a nice place like that. You did them a favour, now let them do someone else a favour who would never expect such a thing."

Isn't that a good idea? A slightly less charitable letter from a reader addressed the notion, mentioned last week, that I might be preaching to the choir.

"People who buy the Saturday Gazette fall into two camps," the reader said. "(1) Those who already know about saving money, who wouldn't bother to read your column, and (2) people who aren't saving money and don't want to be made to feel guilty by your constant nagging. They wouldn't read the column, either. Ergo, no one reads your column, and you should consider another line of work."

This is a self-defeating argument, since he obviously reads the column, doesn't he?

I have reason to believe others do, too, not least another man who told me this week that he had taken my advice and closed a UK bank account that might impair his status as not domiciled in the UK. He very kindly sent the bank the column I'd written on the subject, so that's two more readers: him, and the bank I can no longer visit when I'm in the UK.

I hope someone is reading this, although I do recall, when I was a cub reporter, being told to always remember that I was writing for an audience of none.

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Last week I mentioned that I was giving up smoking and might, as a result, go nuts and run naked through the Houses of Parliament. All the mail I received on the subject (from readers, one assumes) urged me to keep my clothes on.

What is wrong with you people? Where is your spirit of adventure?

Speaking of madness, I came across two thoroughly modern branches of madness this week. Both have relevance to Bermuda, one rather more than the other.

King Ludwig Syndrome is a term coined for a Bavarian psychiatrist who was attending the King and drowned with his patient in a boating accident. After years of treating the mad monarch, the shrink apparently had become just like his patient — completely mad and convinced he had power over mortal men.

Today, King Ludwig Syndrome apparently crops up anywhere that money has been made quickly and, at least on the surface, painlessly. If you share an office with a man who makes millions, it is supposedly quite simple to believe that you do too, even if you're just a regular schlep like the rest of us.

One of the examples cited in the article was the corporate jet. If the CEO, who uses the jet as a business tool, invites you to tag along often enough, apparently you can start believing that you are entitled to it. You start to think that the company would not survive without you, even if your job is a lowly one, and despite the fact that no one is indispensable. In extreme cases, the sufferer believes he or she is the CEO.

I've mentioned the occasional difficulty of spending one's days dealing with multi-millionaire executives and returning home to find one has $47 in the bank.

This is a thoroughly modern ailment. In the days when staff called the boss "Sir" and everyone knew where they stood, no one developed King Ludwig Syndrome.

I am familiar with it, even if I've never had it. I can think of many people I've known who were somewhere down the corporate hierarchy, who behaved as if they owned the company. The best example (I'd give you the guy's name if I thought he wouldn't come round and bludgeon me to death) was a fellow I met at the airport. He is a minor functionary at one of our larger insurance and reinsurance ventures, if he is still employed there.

This idiot had been hanging out with some friends, far away from the line for the plane I was travelling on.

When his conversation finished, he rudely barged in front of me, ignoring the fact that I had been patiently waiting my turn.

He had decided that it was time for him to board the plane, and being of such huge importance, he naturally didn't give a thought to standing in line, as ordinary people have to. I hasten to add that this fellow wasn't Bermudian: no one local would behave in so thoughtless a manner.

When I pointed out that there was a line, and he should wait his turn, he looked at me as if I were the mad one.

He muttered some excuse about having been at the airport before the rest of us, cursed me roundly (in front of children) and brazenly jumped the queue. I used to think he was just an obnoxious swine. Now I think he has King Ludwig Syndrome.

I hope he drowns in a boating accident.

The other modern madness is called the Truman Syndrome. This has rather less to do with Bermuda, possibly.

It occurs when someone believes that their entire life is a sham, a show put on by everyone they know (and everyone else) in order that their every move may be monitored.

It's named for the movie, 'The Truman Show', in which Jim Carrey's character unwittingly lives his life on camera as the innocent star of the world's most popular TV programme.

The reason someone might believe this was happening to them is a desperate need to be the centre of attention.

The report spoke of one fellow travelling to New York City to see if the World Trade Centre was still there, since he thought it might not actually have been destroyed, but that he was supposed to believe it had been.

Pretty mad, eh?

I have had the odd frisson of the Truman Syndrome, when strangers have approached me in the street and asked "Have you had any ice cream this week?" or "Have you really given up smoking?"

This used to throw me, until I realised that they had read things I'd said in this column. Until then, I didn't think anyone read the column, which brings us back to where we started.