Unemployment has risen and the days of easy credit are gone. But for those people still in employment, there's been a big fall in mortgage costs, and food and energy prices have come right back down.     

Monthly surveys from grocer Asda have shown a steady rise in disposible incomes and so it is hardly surprising that retailers are starting to feel the benefit.

Marks & Spencer beat first-half profit forecasts on Wednesday, while rival clothing chain Next topped third-quarter sales expectations.  

The signs are that Christmas, the biggest spending season of the year, will continue the positive trend and will not be a repeat of last year's frenzy of discounting and business failures.

The Centre for Retail Research forecast earlier this week that retail sales would rise 1.9 percent to 44.7 billion pounds in the last six weeks of the year, not far short of the average outcome in the nine years before last year's decline.      

But the improvement is unlikely to continue.

With a temporary cut in VAT sales tax due to reverse and other taxes expected to rise to plug the gaping hole in public finances, disposible incomes could come back under pressure.      

Wages growth is likely to remain subdued as unemployment continues to rise, and many Britons may feel that, after a festive splurge, they need to refocus on paying down their still high levels of personal debt.

It may be a merry Christmas, but a much less happy New Year.

Many investors are still up in arms over M&S's decision last year to elevate the charismatic Stuart Rose to executive chairman -- combining the roles of chairman and chief executive against corporate governance guidelines.

Rose survived a rebellion last year and must be hoping that forecast-beating first-quarter sales will draw the sting from opponents ahead of next Wednesday's annual shareholder meeting.

But anger seems unlikely to die down. Three shareholder advisory groups -- Glass Lewis, Pirc and RiskMetrics -- have urged investors to back a rebel resolution which calls on M&S to appoint an independent chairman by July 2010.

The resolution, from local authority pension funds, is cleverly worded as it supports Rose's re-election and so, unlike last year's protest, is a clear vote on the principles of corporate governance and not on the man himself.

Anxious to avoid a fresh battle, Rose recently waived a third of shares awarded to him under a performance plan which some investors said was too generous.

To end the constant sniping that must be a distraction from running the business, Rose may have to compromise again.

But the saga of the North Atlantic island of Iceland does not stop at its own rocky shores.

Riding a wave of cheap borrowing, Icelandic investors spread their interests far and wide, taking stakes in companies as diverse as New York department store Saks, Finnish insurer Sampo and English soccer club West Ham United.

Most famously Baugur, an investment group controlled by entrepreneur Jon Asgeir Johannesson bought up large swathes of Britain's high street, from the Iceland frozen food chain (appropriately enough) and Hamleys toy store to House of Fraser department stores and fashion group Mosaic.

But what happens now? The cheap credit has dried up; two of Iceland's biggest banks have been bailed out by the government; credit insurer Euler Hermes has stopped cover for suppliers to some of Baugur's empire; and West Ham's Icelandic owner Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson has already been hit by the collapse of team sponsor XL Leisure.

Gudmundsson chairs Icelandic bank Landsbanki, which has now stopped customers withdrawing money from its British internet bank icesave.

Will the hardy Icelanders weather the storm, or will they be forced to sell into a market where they may struggle to find buyers? A case of shop until you drop, perhaps.