Blue Circle, the biggest of the lot, fell to France's Lafarge some years ago.Neither RMC nor AI, no matter how well-managed the latter, are obviously attractive bid candidates. Both are largely located in the mature, low-growth markets of western Europe or America. Their suitors, on the other hand, operate mainly in high-growth developing nations. Now the Swiss are about to walk away with his other business, Aggregate Industries, which yesterday said it was "minded to recommend" a £1.8bn offer from Holcim. Mr Tom and his family will make £29m out of the deal - not bad for a Leicestershire lad who left school with few formal qualifications and the added handicap of being dyslexic. The windfall might be even bigger if Holcim's approach manages to spark off an auction.What is it about a dull old industry like aggregates that is generating such bid interest? If AI succumbs it will be the second big quoted UK building materials group to be swallowed up by an overseas rival in short order following the £2.3bn purchase of RMC by Mexico's Cemex. Prices for many indigenously produced goods and services are meanwhile inflating away like there's no tomorrow.

The debt-fuelled demand created by low interest rates has been good for Dixons and other high street retailers, but it has arguably been quite bad for the overall health of the UK economy. Much as it hurts Mr Clare, the Bank had to call time at some stage.Aggregate demandThe runaway leaders of rugby's Zurich Premiership this year are Leicester Tigers, thanks in part to the cash ploughed in by Peter Tom, the club's chairman and biggest shareholder. It is also helping to generate very healthy levels of product demand. In fact Mr Clare had quite a good Christmas relative to many other retailers, with underlying sales up 3 per cent in the four weeks to 8 January.The headline number, on the other hand, disguises what is a quite remarkable, underlying story.

Sales in the core Dixons and Currys chains were strong, but at PC World sales were down 3 per cent. The fall in sales at PC World is explained entirely by price deflation, which according to Mr Clare was an astonishing 20 per cent for desk-top computers last year. The number of unit sales at PC World over the four week period were, by contrast, up a healthy 7 per cent, while transactions were a tenth higher. Fast back five years, and the equivalent model would have been priced in the thousands of pounds, for which you would have got less than half the computing power The new Mac mini is to go on sale at just $500, or £266. Just how low can these prices go? A lot lower yet, I'm reliably informed.Perhaps regrettably, this price deflation isn't a miracle of the UK economy, but is being imported from the Far East and America, and it is one of the few things which is keeping the overall rate of inflation in the UK below the Government's target of 2 per cent.