The other day I was called by a journalist doing a story on the credit crunch and its impact on borrowers. After a while they admitted they too had substantial debts and it was a big worry and we discussed the real stigma attached to admitting it. Yet there’s no stigma to borrowing; after all we now...

I recently added the Google toolbar to my browser. It means now when I do a search or get a site name wrong it’s Google rather than MSN that appears. One thing of note is when you enter something into the Google toolbar it brings up a series of popular searches as an option. Now if I...

On Saturday night, in the midst of the DDOS attack crisis I took up the kind invite of my friend Mark, to escape for a few hours to the British Athletics Writers Awards dinner. If nothing else to provide my techie team with a welcome break from “is it up yet” phone calls. I’ve always been a...

It’s Sunday afternoon. MoneySavingExpert.com is down again at the moment; as we investigate a sadly expensive solution to the DDOS attack we’ve been under since Friday 4pm. I hadn’t seen this coming. It’s shocking and debilitating. I’m writing this in the hope we’ll find a way to improve it; we’re all ready looking at solutions, but sadly...

I thought you’d find the duality I need to display in different media interesting. When being interviewed about how to get out of debt, if there’s a short space of time, I usually keep the answer to three short bullets. Cut the interest rate. As then more of your repayments go towards paying off the actual debts...

The premium phone line regulator Icstis is rebranding itself PhonePayPlus. This is one of the most idiotic rebrandings I’ve seen. The new name sounds like it’s a telecom’s provider, one of the very companies it’s supposed to be regulating. Worse still, when you get to its new website… it doesn’t actually tell you what it does.

I’ve been wanting to go to Dans le noir for ages; and this weekend finally did so. It’s a very different restaurant, you eat in a strictly enforced pitch black room; and have to leave anything that creates light (luminous watch, mobile phone) in a locker beforehand.

What a strange morning; I’ve just been driving round central London on a moped wearing a Money Saving Expert banner next to another moped, this one complete with a sidecar and an actor dressed as a bank manager in a bowler hat. It’s all because while PPI reclaiming is a very sexy story, it’s not a very...

I was checking out Citibank’s web-savings account to see if it merited inclusion in the Top Instant Access Savings article when I noticed something hilarious. Normally when you enter your title and it’s a drop-down list; the options are Mr., Mrs., Dr. and a few selected others. Yet Citibank obviously caters for a different clientele as it...

What a bizarre encounter at immigration. The MSG and I were returning from a quick weekend break and were queuing behind two girls. It was difficult not to listen to their conversation and phone calls as they were broadcast at megaphone volume to everyone. They were going out to party ’til three in the morning, confirmed by...