I’ve just come back from the London Press Club lunch, where I was delighted to pick up the “Consumer Journalist of the Year” award.

Not coming from a print journalism background I wasn’t aware of quite how big a do this was and when I got there realised most of the National papers editors and many high profile top hacks were there. On my table alone were the Editor and Dep Ed of the Times plus Robert Peston (who deservedly won Biz Journalist of the year).

Not my finest hour.

Now of course I’m very chuffed to have got such a prestigious trophy, but that aside, it honestly wasn’t the best day.

When I first heard it was on a Tuesday, I said I couldn’t go. Firstly, it’s my GMTV morning, then working on the weekly email for the rest of the day until late in the evening. There’s never a moments break. I was, however, persuaded that it would be “stoopid” not to attend.

Yet when I woke up this morning for my 6.40 transport to GMTV, I felt very sick, and I’ve been seriously nauseous all day. So much so that when I left filming at GMTV at 12:30 to go to the awards, I deliberately didn’t take my make-up off; I’m so green otherwise I think it’d scare people.

Toilet Break at a bad time.

Lunch was nice, I sat next to a lovely lady from British Gas who runs British Gas’s regional PR department (they were the award sponsors) in Cardiff and is a site user; she thankfully kept my mind off my green gills.

Then the awards were about to start so we checked the order. As it seemed mine was the third one, I nipped out to the loo. Sauntering back I saw my name on the screen, realised it’d been the first award, and heard them announcing that I’d won. I ran in, in a bit a fuddle, walked up said thank you.

Then I ending up sitting back down in the wrong chair (one belonging to Sir Christopher Meyer who was presenting the awards) and embarrassingly then had to get up again and walk back to the right one.

No chance to thank the News of the World.

Worse still, these things are quite political and I had wanted to thank the News of the World, for being different and giving a money columnist a place up the front of the newspaper (most money columnists are kept in the money ghetto). In these times they do try and grasp the fact that practical news is a real help to people.

Yet when I said “do I say something” as I got the award they said no. Then I found out that while I was out they’d said “please keep speeches short or do none at all”, and virtually everyone else thanked the organisations they worked for. So I hope they don’t feel snubbed! Let me say thank you here… thank you.

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Three cheers for Sir Alan, nope this isn’t about Premium Bonds, as you’ll know from the premium bonds: are they worth it? guide we’re not singing from the same song sheet on that one.

Yet when I finally got round to watching The Apprentice from two weeks ago, he did something which made my heart sing.

One of the contestants told him they’d give 110% effort, and he snapped back something akin to “just 100% will do, don’t start with that.”

Now this proves that Sir Alan is a proper numbers man, and I’m very glad to see I’m not the only one who gets frustrated with this trite & incorrect phrase.

As I wrote in my first blog declaring war on 110% effort, you can’t give more than 100%, the point is quite simple.

“You cannot give more than 100% effort. Giving 101% means you are making an effort beyond your actual capacity. Even if you are making more effort than was previously possible for you, then in fact your ‘effort output’ has increased, but you’re still giving 100% (though an effort level you may previously have described as 80% is now recalibrated as a 79% effort!).”

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PS. Also see related old blogs: further war on 110% effort, Go JLS – 100% right.

Friends, enemies, site users, viewers, profile writers, colleagues, relatives, broadcasters and somewhere I’m sure even farm yard animals have taken the mickey out of my stripy shirts. Yet I’ve weathered the storm, and remained as faithful to them as stamp adhesive.

True, I do now throw in a few plain-styled tapered shirts just for variety, but my wardrobe of more than 50 striped varieties remains relatively unblemished (well, once they’re out of the wash).

Now you may be thinking that fashion and Martin Lewis go together like pigeons and decaf coffee, yet not any more – according to the Independent I’ve made it to the top 100 most influential people in the world of fashion (online… but hey).

So without further ado, with the power vested in me as the 25th most influential person of trend (online). I’d like to pronounce the stripey shirt as the number one fashion statement of the next five years. Zebras, Tigers and ladies who publically undress (stripers…) our time has come!

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