As a journalist, especially when broadcasting, it’s important to remember that the UK has a number of constituent parts and there are material differences in the rules covering them. The education and legal structures, for example, can differ substantially, with rules in England and Scotland often varying. When doing my work I always try to check beforehand...

Whenever you write in the forum, beware marketing and branding experts are calculating the impact on their products. According to a fascinating piece on peer-to-peer communication in Marketing magazine, this site is “Probably the most powerful site on the Net right now” and it routinely comes top of the Brandwatch charts for the top source on brand...

I’m a sucker for cinema sweetie pick ‘n’ mix; it’s one of my little treats…. The other day, having succumbed (good for neither the wallet or the waistline), I was looking at the giant carton with my few sweets in and it got me mulling about sweetie/chocolate packaging in general. Think about it… Normal packs of sweets/chocolates...

Is the credit crunch real? I’ve been asked this a few times, and put simply the answer is yes. The problem is the term’s now so corrupted, misunderstood and incorrectly used that it, like many other things currently being said, has become a nonsense. I’m continually asked by my regular media outlets to ‘do things on the...

Finally got the free cup of coffee… see my even I’m not immune to loyalty cards blog for details.

Every day this week, The Guardian’s got a special pullout focusing on saving money. To start the first one off, its main interviewer, Simon Hattenstone (not part of the money section, as you’ll see), came to spend a few hours with me. You can read his article here: “I feel ashamed. Very ashamed”. It’s hard to MAKE...

It’s incredible what we get sent through sometimes. This is my first “silly press release” contender – more to come as and when. Perhaps less credit crunch and more credit stuffed crust… “NOTTING HILL DEFIES CREDIT CRUNCH CUSTOMERS GO CRAZY FOR UK’S MOST EXPENSIVE PIZZA LONDON, 13 JUNE: Mulberry Street Pizzeria was left questioning the truth of...

About an hour ago I put the phone down after swearing at someone; this was a deliberate but unpleasant tactic (and sadly not the first time I’ve needed to do it – see my I rarely swear at people blog). For the last few days our home phone’s been ringing and as I’ve either been out or...

Grrrr… One of my pet peeves is people saying they’re going to give 110% effort or more. You can see my last full blown rant on this in my old you can’t give more than 100% effort blog) . That blog was all about X-Factor contestants, and now I realise where they get it from… This is...

Whilst shaving, I realised I’d left the tap on nearly full power since I started, wasting a huge amount of water. Of course, I should’ve switched it on and off throughout, but as happens too often, my mind was elsewhere. Now, my loo has two buttons to allow different volumes of water to flow through it (or...